Sawed Chapter 13: A Kind Of Glow
Chikorita-Trainer1
T
Disclaimer: I don't own Saw or anything else I might reference or shamelessly rip off.

Author's Note: I personally have never taken Vicodin and never drunk alcohol. Separately or together. So I have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to this cocktail. If I got anything wrong, I apologize. I don't drink or do drugs—I have no idea what it's like.

It was late at night as Allison drove as fast as legally possible through the city, trying to get to Adam's apartment before…she didn't know what. What had Lawrence 'sensed'? What could be happening to Adam?

"Mommy, what's happening?" Diana asked timidly from the back seat.

"I don't know, honey," said Allison. "But I've never seen your daddy so frightened." Never seen him so passionate, she added silently.

"How does he know something's wrong?"

"I don't know, Diana," said Allison. "Seems like he just has a sixth sense about Adam. I mean, maybe he's wrong. I hope he's wrong. I hope we get there and Adam's fine."

"Me, too."

"I don't need any more sedatives!" Lawrence growled to his doctor.

"I understand, Doctor Gordon, but it's in your best interest not to get worked up again."

"I am NOT worked up!" Lawrence insisted. "But I am very afraid for Adam."

"Yes, what exactly is going on? How do you know something's wrong?"

"I had a dream he was dying," said Lawrence. His doctor tried to keep a look of humor off his face. "It's not what you think, this has been happening ever since he and I got here."

The doctor pulled up a chair and sat down, looking Lawrence in the eye. He wanted to at least look like he was taking him seriously.

"For the past few days, when I've been alone, and my ankle starts hurting, I just have this FEELING that Adam is suffering, too. And when I've asked him, he's said he'd been having a nightmare at the same time. Other times, he's shown up at my room, claiming his shoulder was hurting, and it's always been, like, right after I've woken up from a nightmare. We can just SENSE it in each other. I didn't ask for it, I didn't make it happen, it just happens!"

The doctor listened intently and nodded.

"There are extremely rare cases of these almost psychic phenomena," said the doctor. "It's really all more rooted in the power of suggestion, though."

Lawrence sighed, leaned back and closed his eyes. He knew how hysterical he must sound to others. But he knew what he felt.

"Look, it's not like I want it to be real. I really do HOPE I'm wrong, and that he's fine," said Lawrence.

"You really care about that kid, don't you?"asked the doctor in a low voice.

Lawrence clenched his eyes shut as he tried to hold back tears. He took in a shuddering breath.

"Yeah," he sighed.

"He's not answering," Diana said to her mom, holding Allison's cellphone up to her ear. After hearing Adam's phone ring multiple times, all she got was his voicemail message.

"This is Adam. Leave a message."

"Keep trying," said Allison. Diana continued to dial and redial the entire length of the drive, until they got to Adam's building and found a parking space.

"Come on," said Allison. Diana got out of the car on the sidewalk side and grabbed her mother's hand as they ran as fast as they could to Adam's building.

The duo opened the door, ran up the stairs until they got to the abrasively red hallway, and finally got to the door to Adam's apartment.

"ADAM! YOU OK? ARE YOU IN THERE?!" Allison called while pounding on the door.

"Mommy, the key!" Diana pointed to the lintel. Allison stretched her arm up but she couldn't reach it.

"Here, can you get it?" she asked, while lifting Diana into her arms. Diana felt around until she found the spare key. "That's my good girl."

Allison unlocked the door and the two of them stepped in, and Allison flipped on the light switch.

"Adam?" Diana called, her voice shaking.

"Adam? Are you OK?" Allison called. She and Diana spread out to search the apartment. It wasn't long before Diana screamed.

"DIANA?" Allison cried, following her daughter's voice to Adam's bedroom. When she arrived at the door, she gasped at the sight.

Adam was sprawled out on his back on the bed, unresponsive to the screams, which made it obvious he was unconscious and not just asleep. An empty bottle of vodka was on the floor beside his bed, and there were pill capsules scattered around both the floor and the bed.

"Oh, God!" Allison exclaimed.

"Is he dead?" asked Diana in a whimpering, broken voice.

"No, nononononononono," Allsion mumbled more to herself than Diana, as she ran over to the bed and gripped Adam's face in her hands. He was still warm. "No, he's fine, he's just knocked out."

"What's wrong with him?" Diana cried.

"Looks like an overdose," said Allison. Being a doctor's daughter, Diana was privy to many medical terms and concepts. She knew what a drug overdose was, and she certainly knew what alcohol was and what it could do.

"Adam, Adam, wake up! Come on, come on, wake up!" Allison said, trying to smack his face, but also knowing that it probably wouldn't work.

"Mommy?" Diana stood in the doorway, shaking and crying.

"Honey, he's fine. We just need to wake him up somehow."

"Can you splash water on his face?"

"That's not going to help. Let's try to lift him up."

Diana crept over to the bed, climbed up, and reached out to the back of Adam's head. Allison grabbed his torso and hauled him up into a sitting position. His head lolled forwards and the two girls almost lost their grip on him.

"Adam, come on. Wake up," Allison muttered. Suddenly, Adam started to make gagging sounds. "Oh God. Diana, grab that wastebasket." She pointed to the corner of the room. Diana ran and grabbed the bin, and handed it to her mother.

"What's happening?"

"I think he's going to throw up," said Allison, trying to lean Adam over the bin.

Diana cringed and covered her ears and ran from the room. She didn't want to be present for this.

"Come on, Adam. It's OK. Come on, come on, right here," Allison guided the still unconscious young man towards the wastebasket. He made a few more involuntary gagging sounds, then lurched forward and vomited.

Diana stood outside the room, shaking. Knowing other people were sick to their stomach bothered her. She didn't like to see it OR hear it.

"OK, OK, good job. Good job, Adam," said Allison, rubbing his back. Suddenly, Adam sat up, his eyes half-lidded, and looked at Allison briefly. But then he quickly pushed her out of the way and staggered out the door, past Diana, and limped hurriedly to the bathroom. He slammed the door and Diana covered her ears so she wouldn't hear him retching.

Allison came out of the bedroom and hugged her daughter.

"It's alright, Diana. He's not sick sick. He just drank too much and took too many pills. He's going to be OK."

"Why?" Diana cried.

"See these pills?" Allison unfolded her hand and showed her daughter the capsules. "These are very strong painkillers. They put him to sleep. But he took them with alcohol, which was a very dangerous thing to do. He could have died if we hadn't found him."

"How?" asked Diana.

"Well, it's pretty gross. But I'll explain it to you later. Right now, call Daddy and tell him that Adam's alive," Allison said. Diana was still clutching her mother's cellphone.

Allison went over to the bathroom, where she could hear the toilet flush. She knocked a couple times.

"Adam? You OK?"

She heard Adam groan lightly, and then heard the 'clink' of the toilet lid being lowered. She opened the door and turned on the light.

Adam, in flannel pajama pants and a dirty t-shirt, sat on the floor by the toilet, leaning back against the bathtub, his eyes still only half-open.

Allison knelt down across from him. He looked at her, and then his head lolled to the side and he looked away in shame.

"Adam, you idiot," she hissed. "Vicodin and vodka? You could have killed yourself!"

"Unghhhh…." he moaned, leaning forward and covering his face with his hand.

"Do you realize what almost happened?"

He shook his head.

"You could have—if we hadn't gotten here in time—you—" Allison stuttered. She decided to just be blunt. "You could have aspirated your own vomit." It was gross, but it was the truth.

"Huh?" Adam groaned.

"You were passed out on your back. Opiates and alcohol—your body tried to rid itself of them. If we hadn't been here to lift you up and get you to puke in the trashcan, you would have just unconsciously vomited into your own mouth. You would have been unconscious and therefore unable to turn over, and it would have just pooled in the back of your throat—you could have drowned in your own puke, essentially. That's how Jimi Hendrix died."

"Hendrix died of a heroin overdose," Adam argued tiredly.

"Yes, and in his drugged-out state, he aspirated his own vomit," said Allison. She hung her head in exhaustion and exasperation. "You IDIOT!"

"Sorry," Adam rasped, his throat scaled from bile.

Allison sighed. She reached her hand out to Adam's chin and forced him to look at her.

"We barely got here in time," she declared. "You could have died."

The corners of Adam's mouth sank, and tears spilled from his eyes. He nodded and sniffed, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Thank you," he whispered. He sniffed again and said "I'm sorry."

"Please tell me you weren't trying to commit suicide," said Allison.

"No, no," Adam sighed. "I swear to God, no. My shoulder was hurting like crazy. It felt like…like giant screws were being driven into it. I was scared. And they sent me home with Vicodin, just in case that very thing happened—"

"Yeah, but you're never supposed to mix pain pills and alcohol!" Allison raised her voice, causing Adam to cringe.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," he said pleadingly. "But I didn't have anything else to drink."

"You didn't have WATER?"

"Well, of course I had—" Adam stammered. Realizing he had no excuse, he relented and tried to admit why he had been drinking vodka that night. "I had already been drinking, because…I've been…I…"

I'm in love with Lawrence, and being apart from him is so painful I just wanted to go numb, he thought.

No, I don't think I can say that.

"How did you know to come here?" he asked, slowly pushing himself up from the floor, his hand on the edge of the bathtub. He knew, but he wanted to hear Allison say it.

"We didn't. Larry did," she said. Adam nodded slowly—any quicker and his head would have pounded. "He sat up in bed, ripped his oxygen mask off and started raving about how he knew you were in trouble."

"Yeah," said Adam, weakly walking over to the sink and turning on the tap. He ducked his head down under the faucet and gulped down cold water.

"Let me get you some ice water," said Allison. She went out to the kitchen, opened a cupboard and found a glass, then she went over to the freezer door and groped around for some ice cubes. She filled the glass with tap water and returned to the bathroom to find Adam sitting on the closed toilet, head in hands, pulling at his hair. "Here," she said, handing him the glass.

"Thanks," he said, taking a slow sip. The cool water soothed his still-burning throat.

"How's your head?" asked Allison, this time making sure she kept her voice soft.

"I don't know…sucks?" Adam slurred. Allison bit her lip to keep from laughing.

"Want an Ibuprofen?" she suggested—she always carried a bottle in her purse.

"Sure," said Adam. She produced the bottle and put them on the sink counter. Then she left the bathroom to go talk to Diana, who was still on the phone with Lawrence.

"Hold on, Daddy. Mommy wants to talk to you," said Diana. She handed the phone to Allison, who took it and walked back into the bedroom to talk to Lawrence.

Diana sat on the couch, trying to calm down from the anxiety and panic of what she had just witnessed.

Adam took one of the green gel capsules, gulped down some more water and set the glass on the sink counter. Then he, on unsteady legs, walked into his living room to find Diana.

"Hey," he said, kneeling down in front of her.

"Are you OK?" she asked tearfully.

"I am now. Thanks to you and your mom," he said softly. "I'm sorry you had to see that. That must've been pretty scary."

Diana nodded.

"You've been through so much in the past week, and you didn't deserve any of it. I'm really, really sorry," he further reiterated.

"It's OK," she shrugged.

"No, it's not OK. You and your mom have been taking such good care of me; visiting me in the hospital, bringing me stuff, paying my bill, driving me home…" Adam trailed off. Letting me visit your dad whenever I've wanted to. Not thinking it's weird how much I've come to rely on him.

Diana sniffed, finally calming down, which made Adam smile.

"I care about you, Diana. And I care about your dad—"

"I know," Diana cut him off. Adam looked away from her for a moment as Allison came back into the room. "Adam?" Diana said. Adam looked back at her. The little girl before him looked into his eyes, with sympathy, awareness and a maturity beyond her years. "I know."

Adam smiled, silently acknowledging what she meant, and gently embraced her.

"Alright, come on, you two. We've got to get back to the hospital," said Allison.

Adam sat in the passenger seat while Diana sat in the back. The Ibuprofen still hadn't kicked in yet, so he was still rubbing his throbbing temples as they pulled out into the road.

Allison glanced at the clock on the dashboard. 1:34 AM. All three of them were sleep-deprived. Well, maybe not Adam, since he had been passed out for who knows how long? But he was still suffering the most.

"Want to grab some coffee on the way?" she suggested. Adam nodded, so they stopped at the drive-thru of a Dunkin' Donuts and got a few cups of coffee, and a box of Munchkins for Diana.

"Here you go, kid," said Adam as he handed the box into the backseat.

"Thanks," said Diana. Adam smiled as he turned back towards the front of the car. That little girl was really growing on him.

Once they got back to the hospital, Allison didn't bother to turn into the parking garage. She just pulled up in front of the doors and turned to Adam.

"Why don't you go in by yourself?" she said. Adam looked at her, a little taken aback. "I've got to get Diana home. It's so late. You probably want to stay here overnight, right?"

"Yeah," said Adam. He took one more sip of his coffee and then set it down in the cup holder. "Um, thank you, again. For saving my life."

"Just don't ever do something that stupid again, you hear me?" Allison scolded him.

"I promise!" Adam held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Diana, I'm going to go now. Are you going to be OK?"

"Yeah. I'm just glad you're not dead," said Diana.

"Yeah. Me, too." Adam sighed. He unbuckled his seat belt and leaned over to hug Allison. She just wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear

"Go to him."

It was well past visiting hours, but since everyone now knew Adam as a "close, personal friend of Dr. Gordon," and that Dr. Gordon himself demanded to see him, it wasn't like he was going to be stopped. He had to go through the obligatory bureaucracy of checking in, showing his I.D. and getting a temporary visitor's name tag printed out that he could stick to his shirt.

Inside the elevator, Adam hoped he could conceal his shaking. He had already decided he was going to tell Lawrence how he felt about him, he just hadn't planned on how he was going to do it.

Lawrence, as it turned out, had been moved out of isolation back to his old room. He had, in his doctor's own words, "made a miraculous recovery." His temperature had gone down, he was perfectly conscious, and was fit to see visitors. The doctors concluded it had been a mild case of sepsis, but Adam and the others knew the improvement had been due to psychological and emotional developments.

Hearing that Adam was alive and being brought back to him had really helped Lawrence turn a corner.

It was nearing 2 AM when the voyeur made it to the floor Lawrence was on. He ran into his doctor, who probably should have tried to keep the two men apart for health reasons, but instead offered sympathy.

"He was really, really worried about you," the doctor told Adam out in the hall.

"I almost died."

"Really?" said the doctor. Adam nodded. "And he just knew?"

"Yeah, he and I have kind-of a 'Shining' thing going on," Adam chuckled. The doctor stepped aside and gestured for Adam to enter Lawrence's room.

The voyeur took a deep breath as he laid his hand on the door handle, and went in. The overhead lights were off; only a small light above the bed was on.

Lawrence was wide awake and expecting him, but that didn't stop tears of relief from welling up in the blonde man's eyes. He immediately extended his arms, into which Adam practically ran.

"Oh, my God," Lawrence sobbed. "You're here."

"I'm OK, Larry," Adam assured him.

"I knew it. I knew you were in trouble," Lawrence cried softly, stroking Adam's hair with one hand and gripping his back with the other. "I dreamed it. I dreamed you were leaving me. I dreamed you were dying."

"Well, I'm not dead, Lare," said Adam, pulling away from him so he could sit down on the bed. "Thanks to your wife, I mean."

"Ex-wife, remember?" Lawrence muttered. "Or, soon-to-be."

Adam just laughed lightly to himself, trying to hold back his own tears.

"Did you really take Vicodin with vodka?" Lawrence asked, resting his right hand on Adam's cheek.

"Yes. I really did do something that stupid," Adam admitted. His words were humorous but his face was serious, as if he was deeply disappointed in himself.

Lawrence just sighed and moved his hand around to the back of Adam's head, and pulled him a little closer.

"What happened in your dream?" asked Adam.

"It was just a replay of what happened in that room," said Lawrence. "Only this time, I shot you in the back."

Adam inhaled slowly.

"I think I know what my dreams have been trying to tell me," said Lawrence. "I never really did tell you how sorry I am for that."

"For shooting me in the shoulder?" Adam asked. "Lawrence, I don't care about that."

"In that one dream, where I told you I was sawing off your arm? And then I had one where I shot you in the back. It's guilt. I feel so terrible about it, Adam. My mind has been telling me how bad I should feel."

"Well, don't," said Adam, scooting even closer to Lawrence. "It was just a flesh wound. You knew what you were doing."

"No, I didn't!" said Lawrence. "I wasn't aiming for your shoulder. I could barely see in front of me. I was going into shock, my vision was blurry, I couldn't see where I was aiming."

Adam gulped. He hadn't even thought about that possibility.

"You're lucky," said Lawrence. "I almost shot you in the heart."

Adam took Lawrence's left had and pressed it against his own chest.

"I'm not so sure you didn't."

Well, that was way cornier than I was planning on being, but it's out there. No going back, thought Adam.

Lawrence looked up at Adam with liquid eyes, his expression of relief and elation. Adam couldn't help but smile warmly. Corny as his statement may have been, it looked like everything was going to work out.

Lawrence smiled and leaned in. Before Adam could prepare himself, their lips connected. Lawrence grabbed both sides of Adam's face in his hands, as if to make sure he wouldn't pull away. The kiss was warm and long, and Adam had to feel his hands blindly up Lawrence's chest and shoulders before he found his neck, which he entwined his hands around.

Lawrence pulled back for air, and immediately went back in for another kiss. This time, Adam opened his mouth, and Lawrence pressed his tongue inside. It had been so long since Adam had kissed anyone, he had almost forgotten how, so he just let Lawrence dominate him, kissing him more deeply and passionately until they both ran out of breath again.

Chest heaving, Adam pulled off of Lawrence and opened his eyes. Lawrence was smiling at him like a lovestruck teenager, and Adam had to reach out and stroke a few stands of hair out of the doctor's face.

"I love you," Lawrence confessed tearfully.

"I love you, too," Adam replied, his voice cracking. Tears began to spill from his eyes as Lawrence drew him close in a tight embrace.

"Please stay with me," Lawrence whispered, rubbing his hand up and down Adam's back.

"Yeah, just move over a little," said Adam, pulling out of the hug, shedding his jacket and kicking off his shoes. How convenient was it that he had left his apartment in his pajamas?

Lawrence peeled back the covers and rolled over onto his side as best he could. He still had an IV stuck into his right arm, so Adam snuggled in on his left.

The bed was small, so they had to cuddle up close, but they were more than happy to do so. Lawrence laid on his left side, his left arm underneath Adam's body. Adam lay on his right, his right arm pushed right up against his own body, his left arm stretched out to lay across Lawrence's neck. They lay forehead-to-forehead, under the covers, finally free to love each other.

END OF CHAPTER 13
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