Sawed Chapter 05: Get Off My Case
Chikorita-Trainer1
T
Disclaimer: I don't own Saw or anything else I might reference or shamelessly rip off.

Lawrence awoke slowly, a comfortable warmth spreading through his being. For a moment he almost thought he was at home in his bed, but when he unconsciously noticed the hand draped across his body, he remembered he wasn't with Allison.

He felt the soft breathing of the body next to him, and he carefully brought his left hand up to his bed companion's head. Without opening his eyes, he remembered it was Adam who had snuck into his room last night, complaining of cold. He also couldn't help but flatter himself with the possibility that it was out of loneliness, too.

Adam stirred, but didn't awaken. Lawrence opened his eyes and looked down at the smaller body beside him.

While sleeping, Adam looked incredibly innocent. His face was relaxed, his eyelashes resting gently on his cheeks. His head was on Lawrence's chest, just beneath his collarbone, close enough that he could smell Adam's hair. It didn't smell like soap or anything—he knew the doctors who had sewn him up would have cleaned and disinfected him, too, but not washed his hair. But he still smelled alright.

It took Lawrence a full minute to realize that he felt something. A warm swelling in his chest that sent a gentle tingling all throughout his body. For a minute, he was almost happy with his situation—confined to a bed, this young man clinging to him for warmth. It was almost like there was no place he'd rather be.

All too soon, Adam opened his eyes. Lawrence assumed he could probably feel that the body he was resting on was awake, and had shifted a little beneath him.

"Good morning," Lawrence said softly.

"Mm," Adam groaned as he rolled onto his back, freeing his injured shoulder from underneath himself.

"You fell asleep pretty quickly," Lawrence commented.

"I was tired," said Adam. "I was just too cold to fall asleep."

"I know."

"Sorry to crowd you, man. But I was really freezing."

"It's OK. I didn't mind," said Lawrence. "But you shouldn't have been lying on your shoulder like that."

"Well, I couldn't very well lie on the other side of you, could I?" said Adam. Lawrence looked at his propped-up, bandaged foot and ankle, and chuckled.

"No, I suppose not," he relented. His arm was still around Adam's shoulder. "How do you feel?"

"Fine," said Adam. "You?"

"Fine. Had a weird dream," said Lawrence. "I wasn't in it, I was just kind-of outside, watching. But Alli was a weather girl."

"Heh," Adam chuckled. "You watch the weather report before going to sleep?"

"No, it wasn't about the weather. In fact, I don't think she was even saying what the weather was, in the dream, or standing in front of a map. Like, I just KNEW, somehow, she was a weather girl, y'know? But it wasn't anything visual, it was the way she was talking."

Adam sat up a little and turned to listen.

"Like she was reading off of cue cards…" Lawrence speculated aloud.

"Don't believe Adam's lies. He knows you. He knew all about you before today."

"When I talked to her on the phone, in the bathroom, she told me not to believe you, but it sounded like she was reading lines."

"She had a gun to her head by that point, right?" asked Adam.

"Yeah. So, she was being told to say that…" Lawrence trailed off. His expression, knitted brow and focused eyes, changed to tearful and remorseful.

Adam watched as Lawrence put things together in his mind.

"I was being manipulated. She was being manipulated to manipulate me," he whispered.

He glanced over at Adam, whose face conveyed concern, sympathy and curiosity.

"Zep was playing us off each other," said Lawrence. "I should have seen that. I should have known, he was sowing distrust between us, he was twisting us around, making us hate each other, when we should have been working together."

"You can't blame yourself for siding with your wife, who was under duress at the time, over me, a guy you'd only met like three hours ago," said Adam. "I mean, who did it make more sense to believe—me or your wife?"

"My wife, she, she mentioned your name."

"…what did she say?"

"She told me not to believe you."

"Believe me about what?"

"She told me you knew me. …who are you?"

"…you know who I am."

"STOP THE LIES! YOU'RE A LIAR! I NEED TO KNOW THE TRUTH!"

"I was being played. It was so obvious. I was being played," Lawrence muttered.

Adam didn't know what to say. It was beginning to make sense to him, too, but he still felt obligated to contradict Lawrence, if only to make him feel better.

"It's not your fault," was all he could come up with. "What were you supposed to think of me?"

Adam got up from the bed and stepped towards the window. He looked back at Lawrence, who pressed the button on his control panel to raise the head of the bed a few more degrees, so that he was sitting up.

"I thought…" Lawrence began, trying to remember exactly WHAT he had thought of Adam before he knew who he was.

"The fuck is going on?! Where am I?!"

"I don't know yet."

When he turned on the lights, the bathroom blasted with illumination, he saw a small, scared boy, soaking wet and trembling.

"Calm down. Just calm down. Are you hurt?"

"I don't know…yeah!"

"I don't know what I thought. I don't remember what I felt when I saw you. I guess I was kind-of glad to not be alone," said Lawrence. "But I thought you were…" the doctor trailed off.

"Someone who's angry yet apathetic, but mostly just pathetic?" Adam said softly, looking back at Lawrence.

"You're not like that," said Lawrence.

"How do you know what I'm like?" Adam asked, half-rhetorically.

"All I know is, you're the most courageous person who's…also a terrible liar I've ever met," Lawrence ended his sentence with a chuckle.

Adam grinned and came back to the bed and sat down beside Lawrence.

"And I really appreciate that I don't have to go through this alone," said Lawrence. He expected Adam to take the compliment, but instead the younger man just looked bummed. "What?"

"I was going to say 'sometimes it's better to be alone because nobody can hurt you,' but I don't know if that's true anymore. I was alone when I got attacked by that pig thing," said Adam.

"Yeah," said Lawrence.

"I was being such a macho douchebag," he admitted. "Coming at the closet with a bat, calling it to come out and face me. I should have just run out of the damn apartment."

Lawrence laughed at Adam's self-description. 'Macho' and 'douchebag' were the last words he'd have used.

"I don't know why I thought I had to be brave. It's not like I had anyone to impress."

"You are brave, Adam," said Lawrence. He took Adam's face in both his hands and thumbed a strand of hair out of the young man's face. Adam looked almost terrified at the intensity in Lawrence's eyes. "You're brave, you saved my life, and I—" Lawrence stopped himself.

Adam reached his uninjured arm out and laid his hand on Lawrence's neck.

"Knock-knock," came a cheerful yet sarcastic voice. A nurse opened the door and came in. "Mr. Faulkner, you're not supposed to be here," she said playfully. It was the same nurse Adam had asked for a blanket last night.

"I was just—" Adam began.

"We were just talking," Lawrence defended as Adam got down off the bed and shuffled towards the door.

"It's OK, Larry. I'll see you later," said Adam. He knew he was going to be in trouble as he walked down the hall with the nurse behind him.

"Can't go ripping your IV out, and you can't go sleeping in other patients' beds," said the nurse.

"Yeah, well, I couldn't very well sleep in my own bed, it was like thirty below in there," Adam griped.

"I'm sorry about that, Mr. Faulkner."

"I asked you for another blanket and nobody ever came back," he complained, getting back into his own bed. "And that bag is almost empty," he pointed to his IV bag of saline fluid. "Do I really still need that thing?"

"I'm sorry about the blanket," the nurse said. "I'll get you another one right now. But yes, you need to receive the full course of antibiotics. The longer you go without it, the longer you're going to be kept here."

Adam groaned as he was once again stuck in the arm with the needle, becoming figuratively shackled once more.

"Look, honey, it's nothing personal," said the nurse. "I know you've been through a lot, and you feel very close to Dr. Gordon, but it's just the rules. I don't want to get written up, we don't want Dr. Gordon to get infected— that's why you two were put in separate rooms- neither one of you is going to heal up if you don't follow the rules. You understand?"

Adam just closed his eyes and remained silent.

I'm going to keep seeing him, IV or no, he thought.

"LAWRENCE! GET UP! I NEED YOU!"

The memory of his own terrified voice echoing through the bathroom echoed even louder in his head.

And I still need you.

END OF CHAPTER 05
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