Disclaimer: I don't own Saw or anything I might reference.
We were the young and hopeless
We were the broken youth
You're not the only one they used
I was in the outfield, too
Somehow, we found redemption
We found a love that's true
My life was leading me to you
-Good Charlotte
Warmth. That was the first thing Adam registered when he began to come back into consciousness.
Strong, comforting warmth that informed him that he was safe, and everything would be alright.
The next sensation he registered was the smell of cleanliness. It wasn't the abrasive scents of film-developing chemicals and marijuana smoke of his crummy apartment; it was the smell of clean laundry and maybe even Febreeze. Whatever it was, it was refreshing. Was he in a hotel?
He opened his eyes to find himself face-to-face with a large man's chest, light hair peeking out from the V-neck of a white t-shirt, his own hand pressed against a beating heart just beneath the surface.
His eyes widened and he rolled out of his companion's arms and onto his back and stared at the ceiling. This sudden shift caused the blonde next to him to stir.
Adam looked around the room.
Directly across from the foot of the bed was a twelve-inch flatscreen TV sitting on top of a dresser.
To the left of the dresser was a bathroom—one he recalled from a few hours ago—and to the right of the dresser was a closet.
The bedroom window's blinds were shut, but from around the corners of the slats he could still see the mid-morning sunshine.
He remembered where he was now.
Lawrence's home.
He really was here. He really was lying in Lawrence's bed.
"G'morning," he heard the doctor utter softly beside him.
Adam took a deep breath and sighed.
"Hey."
Lawrence smiled sleepily at him and asked,
"You OK?"
Like they hadn't just slept a few hours in each other's arms. Like no time between the events of the night and this morning had passed.
"That all happened, didn't it?" Adam asked.
Lawrence propped himself up on his left elbow and looked concernedly at Adam's face.
The brunette licked his lips and blinked the morning sleep-induced tears out of his eyes.
"It was all real?"
Lawrence nodded.
Adam smiled nervously and said,
"I was having a dream, and in the dream, I knew it was a dream, and all this horrible stuff was happening, but I knew it was a dream, so I was like 'OK, good. None of this was real.' But then I felt sad because if none of it was real, then neither were you," his voice cracked as he trailed off.
He rolled over, closer to Lawrence, and let the older man embrace him and stroke his bare back.
"It's OK," he said. "It was real, and we are together."
Adam laughed lightly as a kiss was pressed to his creased brow. He sniffed and nuzzled Lawrence's forehead.
"What time is it?" he asked.
Lawrence looked over his shoulder at his digital clock.
"11:47."
So, they'd gotten a few hours of sleep.
"I'm fucking hungry as balls," Adam muttered as he rolled out of Lawrence's arms again and stretched.
Lawrence scoffed at the absurd simile but nonetheless agreed.
"I could use some coffee," he said as he got up and put on his prosthetic.
Adam got up and followed him as the doctor limped out of the bedroom and into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.
He winced internally as he observed Lawrence's gait—knowing that he had been the one to insist Lawrence leave his cane behind—but he stayed quiet and padded over to the counter and took a seat on a stool.
"I could make you some pancakes if you want," Lawrence suggested.
Adam laughed. "Uh, I don't need anything fancy. Like, a bowl of cereal will be fine."
"You think pancakes are fancy?" Lawrence asked, half-sincerely.
"I just mean, you don't have to take the time, is all," Adam insisted.
"Well, the only cereal I have is plain Cheerios."
"That's fine, man."
"You sure? 'cause pancakes are no trouble."
"Cheerios are fine, man," Adam repeated.
Lawrence shrugged and prepared Adam a bowl.
By the time the coffee was ready, Adam had inhaled his bowl of cereal and lifted the bowl to his lips to gulp down all the excess milk.
When he lowered the bowl back down, he caught Lawrence grinning questioningly at him.
"…was that…not cool?" Adam asked nervously. He wasn't used to eating breakfast in the presence of others.
Lawrence laughed and sipped his coffee.
"I'm sorry. That's how I eat cereal at home. Sorry."
"It's OK, Adam," said Lawrence. "It's better than wasting milk by pouring it down the sink."
Adam wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then immediately felt self-conscious for having done so, rather than ask for a napkin.
Lawrence made himself some toast and ate an apple. He offered Adam his choice of fruit, but the younger man declined.
After eating, Adam helped Lawrence over to the couch, where they sat facing each other, and said,
"OK. Tell me everything."
Lawrence began with John's diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumor. His story was frequently punctuated with "Now, this was before…" and "I didn't know this at the time…" keeping in consistency with the way John himself didn't reveal absolutely everything about his life or his intentions all at once.
Adam found it hard to follow and ended up feeling a bit like a schoolboy struggling to absorb a complex history lesson, but he listened with rapt attention.
When Lawrence got to the part where he had to sew one man's mouth shut and another one's eyes shut, Adam squirmed.
"AAAAHHH! His EYES?! Ohhhhh my God!" he cringed and grasped at his hair.
"I know, I know," Lawrence said, reaching out to rub Adam's back. "I can promise you the needle never penetrated his eye. The thread only went through one lid and out the other. I was very careful."
"Stop! Stop!" Adam cried, trying not to picture it. "Oh…I'm never going to be able to listen to Man in the Box again!"
Lawrence chuckled inwardly.
After Adam calmed down, Lawrence continued with his story of how he got the tape of John instructing him to take action if anything were to happen to Jill.
"John was obsessed, no doubt about it," said Lawrence. "It drove Jill away. She didn't believe in what he was doing, but she couldn't find it in herself to expose him, either."
"Guess he had her under the same spell, huh?" Adam timidly suggested.
Lawrence nodded.
"Anyway, he promised her a way out if the cops ever got too close, if he was caught before he died. But once Hoffman caught wind of her plan to expose him, he got to her first and…"
"And what?"
Lawrence cleared his throat. "You remember back when we first met, and I told you about Amanda and how she escaped from a reverse bear trap?"
Adam's eyes widened and he curled into himself. "Yeah."
"Well, Jill didn't escape it."
"Oh, fuck!" Adam gasped, lurching forward, almost vomiting.
"Whoa, easy," said Lawrence, reaching forward and gathering Adam into his arms. "It's OK. It's OK."
Adam didn't know why, after everything he'd been through, everything he'd seen, he was still so rattled by the things he was being told. But if it brought Lawrence's arms around him, he figured he could deal.
After a minute a shushing and comforting, Lawrence resumed his story.
"That's when I knew I had to take Hoffman down. I recruited a couple former addicts from the clinic, people Jill had helped. They jumped at the chance to avenge her. We ambushed Hoffman and put him in the bathroom."
Lawrence's eyes went distant as he remembered the skeleton in the corner of the room, propped up against a pipe. The skeleton he'd thought was Adam's.
"Lare?" said Adam.
"I'm fine. I just…when I went back there, there was a skeleton, and I thought it was you. It was hard enough turning my back on you the first time, but walking out of that place again, leaving you there with him…"
"It wasn't me," Adam said with a smile, affectionately leaning into Lawrence and nuzzling him like a cat.
"I know. But I didn't know that at the time. I can't describe what it felt like to see you—that skeleton—there. Looking at me. Helpless and alone. And I caused it."
"You didn't. I don't know who that guy was or who put him there, but—"
Lawrence cut Adam off. "His name was Aaron Norwood, according to the police. If Amanda was the one who got you out of there, I assume she's the one who put him in your place. The question is why."
"Maybe she'd have gotten in trouble if John knew she'd set me free."
"Most likely," said Lawrence. "John probably knew that if I knew you were alive, I never would have joined him."
"I know," said Adam. "That's what I was telling you last night; he had to destroy your life, make you think all hope was lost, in order to get into your head."
Lawrence nodded.
"Eleanor was right about one thing: I locked Mark in that room with no way to get out. I am responsible for his death."
Adam straightened up and sat back on the couch. "Hey, if he strapped a woman into a device that snapped her skull right the fuck open, I'd say you granted him a pretty merciful fate."
"Actually, Adam, he probably just died of dehydration in there, and that isn't merciful. Without fluids, the body goes through an extremely painful process of diverting water from internal organs. Your blood thickens, making it harder to get oxygen throughout the body. Your eyes contract, you—"
"OK, OK, OK! STOP! Please!" Adam shouted, covering his ears like he'd done in the bathroom when Lawrence began to unravel and pull furiously at his chain.
"I mean, theoretically, he could have kept drinking water from the tub. I don't know how clean it was, but he could have stayed hydrated and still starved. The point is, he probably suffered."
"Jesus H. Christ," Adam muttered as he tried to shake the imagery from his mind.
While part of him was still appalled that Lawrence was capable of such cruelty, he knew he had no right to judge.
After all, Adam had killed someone once too.
He recalled the fury surging through his veins as he bludgeoned Zep with the toilet tank lid. How every time he brought the porcelain down on his head, he knew he was doing it for Lawrence. How if he had waited just a second longer to rise from his own feigned death, Zep would have shot the doctor.
The thought of another person hurting someone you cared so deeply for was strong enough to make a person commit the most gruesome of acts.
Adam understood. He wished he didn't, but he did.
Being brought into Jigsaw's twisted world of appreciation for life and self-inflicted torture had switched up the balance of Adam's sense of morality, too.
He didn't know which path would lead him to salvation or damnation anymore. While forgiving Lawrence and being with him seemed like the path to hell, he also knew he would never know happiness again without him.
No matter what Lawrence had done, no matter how great his capacity for carnage, Adam just knew he belonged by his side. When he was with Lawrence, he felt at peace. What that said about his own soul was too frightening to think about.
Were they both bad people with the ability to love? Or were they good people with the stomach for murder?
What did right and wrong mean anymore? He couldn't answer that.
His main takeaway from this exposition was that Lawrence must really, truly trust him to be this forthcoming, and that meant everything to Adam.
"Alright. So where does that leave us?" the younger man asked quietly.
"I just want to put it all behind me," said Lawrence. "I want to wash my hands of this. Not 'never speak of it again,' I just want to leave it in the past, and go on living."
"Because that's what John would have wanted?" Adam asked half-seriously.
Lawrence grinned. "Because it's what I want."
Adam felt his own heart swell with elation. A wide smile broke out on his face as he reached forward, wrapped his hand around the back of Lawrence's head and pulled him into a passionate kiss.
Lawrence laughed against Adam's lips and brought his own hands to rest on either side of the younger man's waist. They parted but kept their faces close enough to rub noses.
"I want to go on living…" Lawrence repeated. "…with you."
Adam closed his eyes against tears that were threatening to spill out, and managed out a weak,
"Me, too."
The two lovers sat quietly, holding each other for another minute or so, just letting the truth and the weight of their situation wash over them.
Eventually, they let go of each other and sat back.
"We should probably get dressed," said Lawrence.
END OF CHAPTER 01
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