Chapter Text
“So…” Adam shifted awkwardly towards Lawrence, their shared hospital room for ‘observation’ feeling smaller every single day. “How’s the leg?”
Lawrence flexed the leg,ending in a carefully cauterized and bandaged stump. “I still feel the phantom pains. But if I’m lucky I can get a decent prosthetic. Better than dying in that bathroom.” He went back to his paper, the hospital only allowing him soft paper and barely-functional bendy safety pens. He wrote to pass the time. Quotes from Shakespeare, the poems of Elliot, even the songs on the radio helped him pass the time.
Adam sketched. They had no idea how long they’d be stuck here or when he would be allowed to get his camera back, so he drew his surroundings. He drew the chairs, his bed, what he ate that day, and Lawrence. He drew Lawrence a lot. He knew that they were only in the same room because it was bugged, everyone hoping they’d talk more together, describe Jigsaw, jog their own memories, but all he remembered was passing out from blood loss after being shot while an old man got up off the floor and electrocuted him.
He’d said something that Adam didn’t remember, but he remembered hearing “game over” and hearing the slam of a door. Lawrence had come back for him. It could’ve been hours later. It could’ve been years later. He didn’t know. Adam shuddered involuntarily, going back to his sketch of Lawrence, his thoughts starting to spiral. If nobody had come for him… if he’d had to gnaw off his own leg… if he’d died on the floor of that bathroom without even the pistol to help him…
Lawrence heard Adam’s shudder, rocking the safety chair in a very particular way. He turned towards him fully. “Hey, Adam, what do you say I make us a checkerboard? Can’t be any worse than sitting here doing nothing for another day.” He scanned Adam’s face. Lawrence was no psychologist, but he knew that Adam was going back to that place again. He looked distant, hand still absently sketching without the usual skill.
“Hm?” Adam snapped out of the spiral to find Lawrence looking at him expectantly, some question he’d missed. “Uh, sure, yeah.” He wasn’t fully sure what he agreed to.
“So, you’d like me to make a checkerboard?” Lawrence repeated, checking in. Adam nodded. “Great. I’ll get that started.” He pulled the heavy chair over, sharing the table with Adam. He sketched the grid as best he could while Adam hurriedly hid his drawing under the table. “Of course, you’re the better artist,” he started.
“Nah, you’ve got the steady hands,” Adam assured him, watching him fill in and outline the squares. He folded paper into smaller squares, moistening them with his cup of water and tearing them smoothly. He filled half of them in black and drew mini crowns on the opposite sides of all the pieces.
“Alright. Can you play?” Lawrence asked. Adam answered by grinning and moving his piece. Lawrence smiled back, glad to see Adam thinking about something besides Jigsaw. He hated watching his trapmate get lost in those cycles, going totally blank. Smiles were rare, but Lawrence cherished them. He didn’t have Adam’s sense of humor (which had coaxed laughs from him on several occasions), so he tried to help in any way he could. He paid off an orderly to give Adam extra pudding last night, for instance (instructing him to pilfer the cash in his wallet in locker 217 in exchange for better treatment for Adam). That had made him happy for a minute, even if they were both eating with semi-functional paper utensils.
Lawrence didn’t know why Adam’s happiness had become so important to him, but it had. He worried about Adam constantly, only thinking about his own family on the occasional visiting hour. He moved his own piece.
Adam studied the board and then looked back up at Lawrence. Lawrence stared at him a lot. Adam didn’t really know why. It wasn’t unpleasant or stalker-y, just a little odd. He didn’t hate it, though. Not one bit. “Think they’ll have jello tonight?” He asked, their conversational topics very limited. They could talk about Jigsaw or their current situation. That was it. Adam had nothing to say about his own life, and Lawrence didn’t seem to want to get into his family or hospital work.
Lawrence moved in response. “I don’t think so. 9/10 times it’s been pudding.” He didn’t mind the random chatter. It wasn’t the most stimulating conversation, but it was enough for him right now.
Adam moved his piece, hesitated, and then took it back, moving a different one. “Want to bet?”
Lawrence smiled, Adam moving right where he wanted him. “Bet what, we aren’t allowed much in here. And over my dead body are you taking my pen.”
“I don’t know, maybe the loser has to do all the talking in the next interrogation. Or strip and run through the halls,” Adam half-joked.
Lawrence winced. “Those both sound really painful. Maybe something less horrible?”
Adam thought for a moment. “If I lose, I’ll hand-draw you a full deck of cards. Face cards filled in, custom-made for you with this crappy pen and weak paper. It’ll take all night, but I’ll make you a deck.” His hand cramped pre-emptively.
“I don’t have any skills to offer you,” Lawrence admitted. “But if I lose… I’ll let you decide in the moment. Just as long as you don’t get me sent into isolation, ok?” Honestly, Adam could demand anything from him and he’d do it. Besides, they had only had jello one time. The odds were not in his favor.
Adam grinned, a multitude of unsharable thoughts running through his head. Oh, he definitely couldn’t ask Lawrence to do that… hmm…
“Your move,” Lawrence reminded him.
“Right.” Adam moved another piece, capturing one of Lawrence’s. “You should dye your hair,” he said, suddenly thinking of something that he could say out loud. “I’m sure you can bribe someone into getting us kool-aid packets, and you’d look good blue,” he said, reaching up to curl a strand of Lawrence’s blond hair between his fingers without thinking.
Lawrence leaned into the touch automatically and then froze. No, he couldn’t do this. He had to be very normal with Adam here. It wasn’t like the bathroom where they could clutch each other and hold on like the world was ending. He moved away, painful as the movement was. “Ah… yes. Well, odds are that I won’t have to worry about how it’ll look.”
Adam lowered his hand before raising it to his mouth, biting at a raw nailbed with no nail to speak of. “Sorry,” he muttered, gnawing on the quick. “Didn’t mean to do that.”
Lawrence reached out and tugged on his wrist. “You said you weren’t going to bite your nails anymore, stop it.”
Adam hadn’t even realized he was doing it, falling into his old bad habits after the trauma. Lawrence didn’t release his wrist. Adam didn’t want him to. “Sorry,” he said again. Lawrence scanned him, worried. “I’m working on it,” he said, evasively. Lawrence’s eyes narrowed. “I’m…” he trailed off, looking away.
“You went through Hell, Adam. Show yourself a little compassion. But I can’t let you tear yourself up, either. I lost a foot, I don’t want you losing a finger. Ok?” Lawrence wiped the saliva from Adam’s fingers with his shirt hem.
Adam nodded slowly. “Ok,” he agreed. “I’ll keep working on it.” Lawrence let go of his hands, the absence immediately felt. The idea of biting down on his nail again so that Lawrence could grab hold of him once again flashed through his mind. “I wish I could smoke in here,” he said instead.
“Those things’ll kill you,” Lawrence advised. “But go ahead. That’s how I get my patients.”
Adam laughed. He supposed that’s what passed for a joke from Lawrence. “Well, maybe if I get lonely after we’re out of here.”
Lawrence’s gaze sharpened. “No. Not even as a joke. You’re too self-destructive as-is.”
Adam stayed silent for a moment. “…sorry,” he said, for the third time.
Lawrence relaxed. “It’s… no, I’m sorry.” He shifted his chair even closer. “Hey, look at me. I’m sorry. I just don’t want the man I almost died with to die so soon. You’re young, got your whole life ahead of you. Don’t blow it.”
Adam’s mind went back to that bathroom. “I can’t believe I killed a man,” he said quietly. “I killed him with a fucking toilet lid.”
“Adam, he would’ve killed me-“
“He was a victim like us. I played the tape. Did you ever hear the tape? He was poisoned. That sick fucker poisoned him and made him do all that. He was just trying to live, man.” Adam clutched his knees to his chest. “It was you or him.”
“I’m glad you chose me, then.” Lawrence stood up and hesitated. He couldn’t go too far. This wasn’t the bathroom. Things were different in there… but Adam was hyperventilating. He looked so small in that chair. Lawrence hugged him tight, the positioning a little awkward with the chair. “You’re out of there. You did what you had to. He saved my life. He could’ve killed you.” He kept the stream going in Adam’s ear, feeling Adam’s heart race against his arm.
Lawrence counted the beats. 120. 110. 100. Falling. Good. He held on to Adam for longer than was necessary, feeling his heart settle into a comfortable 60 BPM after the wave crashed. He released. “Ok?” He wanted to fully examine Adam now. Check all his vitals and make sure he was truly ok in every way, as though that could fix his mind.
Adam nodded, shakily. “Yeah. I’m ok.” A knock at the door made them both jump.
“Yeah?”
The door opened, revealing two orderlies. One stepped forward. “Dr. Gordon? I’m here to walk you to your shower, guy behind me’s here for Adam. Is now a good time?”
Adam rolled his eyes. The constant surveillance was bad enough, but the escort to and from the showers was just painful. It was as though they thought a tiled floor would send him into a tailspin. “Not tonight.”
Adam’s designated orderly shrugged. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
Lawrence stood, going with his orderly. “You’ll be fine until I get back, Adam?” He asked.
“I’ll play your pieces,” Adam promised.
Lawrence saw his eyes, rimmed in dark circles. Neither of them slept well, but he needed his sleep. His mind wandered back to their bet. The image of Adam wide awake all night drawing him a deck of cards flashed in his head. Once he and his orderly were far enough away, he stopped. “This is the strangest request I’ve ever made, but I’m a high-ranking doctor at this hospital. I can talk to admin about a raise for…” he glanced at the nametag “Carl. Just get me and Mr. Faulkner-Stanheight some jello. I don’t care if you have to outsource it-“
“The hell?” Carl stared at him like he’d grown another head. “Why?”
“That’s not important. Get it cleared and put it on his tray.” If it would make Adam laugh to see him with blue hair, he’d do it. If it would help Adam sleep, smile, or relax for even a second, he’d do anything. He ran his fingers through his hair, curling the strand Adam had touched. “Think I’d look good in blue?”