Sawed Chapter 08: Home, If We Are There Together
Chikorita-Trainer1
T
Disclaimer: I don't own Saw or anything else I might reference or shamelessly rip off.

Adam stayed in his bed for a while. He watched some more of Save The Last Dance, flipped to other channels, but ultimately, he felt bored and restless. He wanted to go back and hang out with Lawrence, but he had just come from there. He told himself he didn't want to bother him, but mostly, he didn't want to seem like a clingy weirdo.

The day stretched on without incident. Because Adam's condition wasn't critical, he didn't receive any more visits from doctors or nurses. He was left quite alone, and normally that didn't bother him—he spent his days alone, spying on people, keeping others at a safe distance, but something had changed since he'd been rescued from that room. He longed for company. Lawrence's, of course, but he even found himself missing casual conversation with Allison and Diana. He wasn't used to people caring about him.

Why in the hell was I even put there? he wondered. Lawrence, OK, I get that, he was being unfaithful. No idea how or why Jigsaw knew or cared, but at least he needed a little kick in the ass. But what did I do that was so wrong? I know my line of work isn't exactly noble, but it pays the bills. "What do voyeurs see when they look into the mirror?" What was the point of all that?

There was no mirror in the room, so Adam glanced out the window. He was able to see a bit of his own reflection, but the angle of the late afternoon sun didn't make for much to look at. As it was, he saw more of the reflection of his bed than of himself lying in it.

"So are you going to watch yourself die today, Adam? Or do something about it?" Jigsaw's raspy voice on the tape recorder haunted him.

What was I supposed to do? Lawrence had a bullet to load that gun. All I got was a tape. We weren't put in there to fight each other to the death, we were put there to…what? Lawrence was supposed to kill me, but what was I supposed to do?

Adam tried to remember every detail of what had gone on in that room since he had climbed out of that bathtub, but the trauma and fear were making it feel like a shaken-up snow globe from his current perspective.

Maybe I wasn't put there to learn a lesson. Maybe I was just there to be killed.

Depressing a thought as it was, it wasn't unlikely. And Adam felt hot tears begin to roll down his cheeks, and a throbbing in his shoulder.

"Now, I see you as a strange mix of someone angry, yet apathetic, but mostly just pathetic."

"I'm dealing with a juvenile!"

"He's a bottom feeder! Just like you!"

Clutching his shoulder and doubling over in sorrow and pain, Adam sobbed silently to himself. Everything everyone had been saying about him was true. He was worthless. He was pointless. He didn't contribute to the world, he just sat back and watched it. The only thing someone had realized he might be good for was dying by someone else's hand, so they could learn a lesson.

The pain in his shoulder suddenly increased, as if the muscle and bone were being crushed together by a giant vice. He cried out loud, and clumsily felt around for his call button.

But then he remembered.

Lawrence wanted him to come to him when he was in pain.

Thankfully, for some reason or another, the hallway seemed to be deserted. No doctors or nurses appeared to be obstructing the path between Adam's and Lawrence's rooms. But Adam still had to trudge slowly, as he could no longer use his free hand to clutch his shoulder—once again, he had to take his stupid IV pole with him. He couldn't wait to be rid of that thing.

When he finally managed to make it to Lawrence's room, he was sweating from the pain in his shoulder.

"Larry?" he grunted as he stepped in and quietly shut the door behind him. Lawrence was sitting up in his bed, but he was asleep.

Adam gulped and crept closer. Lawrence's brow was furrowed as if in frustration, and every few seconds, he would twitch almost imperceptibly.

Obviously, he was dreaming.

"Larry, wake up," Adam croaked out.

Lawrence's lips began to quiver, only about as noticeably as a ventriloquist, but Adam was leaning close enough to see.

Suddenly, Lawrence's twitching became more acute, and Adam backed away out of fear that he would be struck by a flailing limb, or even Lawrence's head, should he bolt upright.

"Lawrence…" he said, fear quite clear in his voice.

Within an instant of Adam's utterance, Lawrence's eyes flew open and he awoke with a gasp.

"Lawrence!" Adam said with a sigh of relief. Lawrence panted and swallowed, turning his head from side to side a few times before he actually registered that Adam was in front of him.

"Am I awake?" he asked.

"Eh, heh!" Adam laughed. "Yeah. NOW you are."

"I…so that was a dream?"

Adam kept laughing at Lawrence's delirium.

"What was a dream?" he asked.

"I…I was…we were…" Lawrence struggled to remember. "We were in the bathroom, and I was trying to get away…"

Adam imagined what Lawrence must have been experiencing. In his mind, he saw Lawrence shaking from blood loss, and dragging himself across the floor towards the door, while he cried and begged him to stay.

"And then, like, I was…I got the saw again…" Lawrence mumbled as he recalled his nightmare. "And I was going to saw your foot off…"

Adam cringed, trying not to visualize it.

"But then…I started…sawing off your arm…?" Lawrence trailed off in a whisper. He looked at Adam, whose eyes had widened in horror just by listening to this story.

"You dreamed you sawed off my arm? What the hell?" he asked casually.

Lawrence shrugged, though he did have some idea of what could have caused him to dream up such a scenario.

"Well, anyway, are you alright?" he asked as he pushed himself up a little higher, into a more upright sitting position.

"Uh, actually, I came in here because my shoulder was killing me," said Adam. "Like, way worse than it ever has before."

"Come here," said Lawrence. He scooted aside a bit to make room on the bed for Adam to sit down.

The dark-haired man once again had to make sure his IV pole was not in a compromising position, and sat down carefully so that he was facing Lawrence, who tentatively examined Adam's shoulder in the sling.

"Does it still hurt?" he asked.

"No. It stopped right about…right when you woke up, actually."

Lawrence looked up into Adam's eyes, and Adam met his gaze, silently acknowledging Lawrence's theory that their pain was somehow connected.

"Your shoulder started hurting, you came in to see me…"

"You told me to," Adam said defensively.

"I know. I know. I'm glad you did. But, like, at the exact moment I was dreaming of cutting you up? You don't think that's a weird coincidence?"

"I don't know," said Adam. "I guess it could mean something."

"And it stopped hurting as soon as I woke up. When I feel pain, you feel pain. And when my pain ends, so does yours."

"You really believe that?"

Lawrence sighed, and let his hands fall to his lap. He looked away and said "I don't know."

A moment of silence passed between the two men, and then Adam spoke again.

"Kind-of a cool superpower to have, I guess."

Lawrence chuckled lightly. "Yeah."

"If it's real."

"Yeah."

Adam didn't know what to say next. With his pain gone, and Lawrence finished with his nightmare, there was no reason for him to stick around, but of course, he wanted to.

The voyeur looked around the room for anything he could use to start up the conversation again. He noticed, on a chair nearby, plugged into the wall and charging, was a laptop. Adam figured Allison must have brought it for Lawrence when she had come to visit earlier.

"Been checking your email?" he asked, nodding in the direction of the device.

"Yeah, somewhat. I've actually been looking at apartments," said Lawrence.

"Why?" asked Adam. But as soon as he asked, he remembered the reason why.

"Well, once I get out of here, and Alli and I sign the papers, I'm moving out," said Lawrence.

"Right," Adam said softly.

"What are you going to do when you get out of here?" asked Lawrence. Adam leaned back a bit and craned his head up towards the ceiling with an audible sigh.

"First thing I'm going to do is smoke a huge bowl," he said.

Lawrence snorted. He hadn't thought of Adam as a stoner, but for some reason, he could easily picture the young man sprawled out on a couch, surrounded by bong smoke, laughing at nothing.

"I mean, probably not a literal bowl, but I am going to get fucking high," Adam chuckled.

"Well, better that than regular cigarettes," said Lawrence.

"I don't smoke regularly," said Adam. "I mean, I prefer weed, but when I'm out on a job, I need to be smoking something that isn't going to knock me out."

"So you're not actually a smoker?" asked Lawrence.

"I'm not addicted to cigarettes," Adam said contritely. "I just smoke one or two every once in a while."

"You seemed to really need one in the bathroom," said Lawrence.

"Are you joking? You're going to put something you found in this room in your mouth?"

"…yes, I'm willing to risk it! Give me that sweet cancer!"

"Yeah, I was freaked out. Needed something to relax me," Adam admitted. Lawrence shrugged, accepting his explanation.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that," said Lawrence. "'cause I kind-of wanted to ask you something, and honestly, if you were actually a smoker, I'd be a little more apprehensive."

"Ask me what?"

Lawrence paused and looked over towards his laptop on the chair.

"After all this is settled, healing up and my divorce and everything, you want to get an apartment together?"

Adam's entire body froze in shock, and once again he felt those Pteranodon-sized butterflies in his stomach. His face broke out in a nervous grin, and he was thankful that Lawrence was no longer touching his shoulder because he would have felt him shaking.

"You want me to move in with you?"

"You said you live in a shit-hole apartment. And I do kind-of owe you my life. And we're friends, aren't we?"

He had been caught off-guard, but all these reasons made sense to Adam.

"I, I, I guess," he stuttered. "Yeah. Yeah, totally."

Lawrence smiled.

During their conversation, they hadn't even noticed that the sun had gone down and it was now nighttime, and they could hear the voices of doctors and nurses bustling about in the halls.

"I should probably get back," Adam said, scooting a little closer to Lawrence and leaning his head down.

What are you doing? he asked himself. He said he wanted to be roommates, he didn't ask you to marry him.

But Lawrence didn't look at all repelled by Adam's proximity. In fact, he leaned into it, gently knocking their foreheads together and then nuzzling as if the two of them were lions. It seemed that that was becoming their signature gesture—something only the two of them understood, something that was just between them, like a secret handshake.

"Goodnight," Lawrence whispered.

"Goodnight," Adam responded.

Adam went back to his own room, with a warm tingling in his heart that he had never felt before.

END OF CHAPTER 08
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