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Adam doesn't know much about the butterfly effect (other than whatever the hell Ashton Kutcher went through), but he does know that somewhere along the lines he made a decision - whether it was as mere as buying menthol cigarettes instead of regular or if it was as major as deciding to make stalking his profession - that led him down a path so harrowing, so despicable, that he finds passion in things like having a precise amount of water when he's making couscous for dinner. Fucking couscous. He didn't even know what couscous was until Lawrence told him. Now he makes it, like, three times a week. Poorly, might he add.
He's pretty confident in it tonight, though. So much so that, the moment the front door of their apartment opens, Adam calls out, "Try my couscous!" because that's an entirely acceptable greeting. Lawrence enters the kitchen, his walk as determined as it can be with a cane and one real foot. Adam thinks it's for him, and he's waving around a wooden spoon, yellow bits of food falling to the floor. Lawrence regards them with disdain for a moment before lifting his eyes to Adam and saying,
"Mark killed Jill."
Adam blinks, dread sinking his stomach. "Shit."
He guesses the whole being buddy-buddy with Jigsaw thing is almost as bad as being excited about couscous.
He asks, "Now what?"
"I'm going to fulfill John's expectations of me," Lawrence says, hobbling over to the kitchen bar to take a seat. He reaches for his notebook, discarded amongst the other random things, and opens it to a blank page. Adam watches, spoon in hand, jaw slack.
"Jesus, he's fucking dead, Lawrence," he reminds him, "he's not still around, he's not going to bust down our door and take your other foot if you don't do anything."
Lawrence never raises his eyes from his notebook, where he's frantically jotting down what appears to be plans. "You know it's not that easy, Adam. I'm indebted to him." His tone teeters that strange line between condescending and empathetic, but just as honey-smooth as ever. Calm and rational in spite of his visible frustration. Adam drops the spoon back into the pot.
"The guy's been six feet under for-fucking-ever now and we're still letting him dictate our lives." Adam crosses his arms over his chest and stares at the floor, even when he sees Lawrence lift his head out of his peripheral.
"Mark and I have never gotten along, you know that."
"You were waiting for this golden opportunity then, eh? More eager than ever to slice his head off and put it in a fucking summoning circle?"
"I don't agree with what he's been doing, Adam. Neither do you. It's been blown far out of proportion and goes against everything John wanted. Wouldn't you like to put a stop to it?"
"I don't want to kill anybody!" Adam exclaims a tad too loudly. This is probably a discussion they'd be better off having at the meat plant, not in the middle of their luxurious (well, in Adam standards) apartment. Living under the guise of normalcy has hardly worked for them, anyway. "Everywhere we look, death here, death there, anywhere is death. Fucking Jill was the last person supposed to die here, and look where she is now. Excuse me for being a little over and done with it."
Lawrence is quiet for a moment, brows creased together, pen in hand but motionless. Finally, he meets Adam's eyes again and asks, "What do you propose?"
Adam balks. "I'm not- does it matter? I just take the pictures, man."
And Lawrence looks at him like he's absolutely ridiculous. "Of course it matters, Adam. You are important to me, therefore I value your opinion."
The flush that creeps from Adam's ears down his neck has him turning around, occupying himself with stirring their dinner so it doesn't burn. "But you're following John's rules, and I wasn't mentioned in his tape to you, so as far as I'm concerned, I don't have a say here."
He hears Lawrence stand and shuffle his way over to him. Adam tries his hardest to shrink himself down and become one with their food, but alas, he remains human-sized and very perceived. Maybe that's not all bad, though, because Lawrence grabs his chin to tilt his head up, thumb running over his five-o'clock shadow soothingly. His voice is soft with fondness when he says, "That's irrelevant," and again, "What do you propose, Adam?"
Adam inhales sharply, finally unclamping his tongue from between his teeth. "I think he should suffer," spills out of his mouth like a dam's been broken. Lawrence presses his lips together in an unreadable expression. "And I don't mean in a game. Not that sixty-second bullshit. That's not- it's not enough."
Lawrence's hand slides up to properly cup Adam's face. Adam leans into it, long since overcoming the invisible barrier that disallowed himself from being affectionate with someone in a way he never had before. He stares up at Lawrence, gauging his reaction, fighting a sigh of relief when Lawrence says, "I think that's what John would want, as well."
"That's far from the way he usually did things, though," Adam points out, "so what are you basing that off of?"
A distant smile finally stretches Lawrence's lips. "The fact that I would want the same for whoever hurt you."
Adam stands there, stunned on the outside but thrumming with a hammering heart on the inside. He clears his throat, nodding frantically. Lawrence pulls back from him in favor of grabbing the wooden spoon and bringing it to his mouth. "Good. Good, I'm glad we agree. Because I would've been pissed if you told me you already were designing the Ball Twister 3000, although that doesn't sound all that bad for him, maybe we can find a way to incorporate--"
"Adam, this couscous is fantastic."
Adam's not sure he's ever perked up so fast in his life. "I know, right?! Here, let me tell you what I did this time, can you write it down in your notebook? Preferably on a page that doesn't have Hoffman-napping ideas."
-
Kramer's tape to Lawrence might've not mentioned Adam, but that doesn't mean his tape to Adam didn't mention Lawrence.
In fact, Lawrence was the sum of it. Adam's only watched it once but John's voice still echoes clear as day in his head: "You are going to become the most vital aspect of Dr. Gordon's life. Do not take that for granted, and do take good care of him." At the time, Adam had braced himself, not knowing what was next. Nothing came, though, except John going on to explain that Adam was to follow future game players, to take pictures and get information. He had found it so funny that what was once used against him was now expected of him.
It became clearer once he moved in with Lawrence. Adam had been expecting Lawrence to need him in some practical way, to rely heavily on his elusive lurking skills, to have him as a cover and someone in his corner, telling everyone that they were trauma-bonded or whatever. It was soon very apparent, however, that John Kramer was some sort of fucking psychic, because Lawrence soon started needing Adam a little differently. And Adam - well. Adam had felt that way since the moment his vision adjusted to the fluorescent-blue bathroom lights and he saw the man that he'd been stalking now across the room from him. He just can't believe something actually came of it.
So, he guesses, he technically is doing what he's been told by accompanying Lawrence to kill - indirectly, but kill nonetheless - Hoffman. He's sticking to Lawrence's side, helping him sound out his plans, making sure everything's working. Above all, he's keeping Lawrence in order, because what unfolded in that bathroom has left a residue on Lawrence that grows and shrinks and grows and shrinks like bacteria. The surgeries for the games haven't helped, nor has the paranoia that accompanies. He's a little too in touch with the primal ape-like part of his brain in a way Adam never will be.
"That's something I admire about you," Lawrence told him one night - or early morning - in the concealed darkness of their shared bedroom, his fingers dancing along Adam's spine, callouses catching on each vertebrae, "although it does make me a little sad."
"What does? The fact that I can bash a man's head in but not chop off my own foot?" Adam had asked, blunt but quizzical, too preoccupied with having a staring contest with Lawrence's kiss-bitten lips.
"Your purity," Lawrence had explained, quiet like someone was listening, "the wonder and hope you bury under your cynicism. You don't want to seem like you have faith in anything, but you had faith in me back there, even after I... hurt you. Hope, Adam. You have hope that not even I have."
Adam had wanted to retort with something about how he didn't have a choice but to have faith in Lawrence, then and now, but they both knew it wasn't true. There is a word for what is between them, and as Adam had shifted back on top of Lawrence and they rocked into each other until Adam was gasping hysterically, it came to him as clear as day: devotion.
So, that's what it is. He'll blindly follow Lawrence around like a stray dog, weaving between his legs and nearly tripping him up. He has faith, sure. He's never believed in himself all that much, and he sure as shit doesn't think the big man in the sky is on his side, so he's gotta put faith somewhere. Lawrence is where it starts and ends. There's no faith left in him to put towards anyone else.
Still, Adam catches himself thinking, as the rancid pig skin slips over his head, that he really didn't think Hoffman had it in him to split Jill Tuck's face open.
-
"Jesus, I don't remember it being this cold down here. I thought it'd be hot as hell. Hah, literally."
Adam speaks for no other reason than to quell the flipping of his stomach. Lawrence eyes him warily and neglects to respond - Adam's thankful for that. Because of-fucking-course he remembers how cold it is down here, he was freezing his ass off whilst sweating bullets (not literally, although it sure would've been helpful to rid himself of the wound in his shoulder that way) in this very room for almost three days. And Jesus, Lawrence had been resembling a skinny-dipping tourist in an Iceland pond during winter. If anyone remembers how cold it could get here - Lawrence does.
"You don't have to do this, Adam."
Adam tightens his hold around an unconscious Hoffman's wrist. They're stopped just outside the heavy door to the bathroom, and Lawrence is giving him one of the most earnest looks he's ever seen. It penetrates him so deeply that he has to look down at Hoffman's stupid, murderous-even-while-asleep face to prevent himself from saying, you're right I don't I'm going home now bye.
"No, I want to," he says, bitter and honest, "I want to be here when this fuck-ass place becomes someone else's tomb."
Heat flashes behind Lawrence's eyes, gone as soon as it came. He looks down at Hoffman, at the ugly poorly-stitched scar on his cheek, and says, "Alright."
When the metal door screeches open, they each drag Hoffman by an arm into the bathroom, stopping just short of the bathtub. It's Adam who fixes the chain around Hoffman's ankle, his hands trembling the entire time. His morbidly curious eyes beg to look around, to adjust to the dark and relive everything he can't forget, but he fights the urge and wins. The smell of the bathroom is different - stuffier, staler, more musty and rotted-sweet than sharp and metallic - so with that logic, he can pretend that the floor isn't caked in his and Lawrence's blood and his own piss and shit.
"He's going to wake up anytime," Lawrence warns. "I don't know if you want to be in here for that."
"I know you're only saying that because you think I'll say something stupid."
Lawrence sighs. "Do you have anything to say to him that isn't a movie reference, in which you will roleplay the protagonist having the last laugh?"
"Aw, come on, it would be so cool, I'd be so Clint Eastwood!"
"We are not in a spaghetti-western, and you are not Clint Eastwood, regardless of how often you quote him while we're showering," Lawrence says, the ghost of a smile on his lips. He wraps his hand around Adam's, their black gloves a barrier between their skin. It makes Adam's heart flare in brief panic - being in this bathroom and not having the ability to feel Lawrence's skin against his own. As if sensing his thoughts, Lawrence adds, "I don't think it will benefit you to be in here. As much as you will refuse to admit it, I know you don't truly wish to see anyone in the same state you were in."
A frown curves Adam's lips, scrunches his brows. "I'm trying to heal my psyche or some shit here, man. No better way to do it than to put the dude who's become the bane of my existence in this shithole."
Lawrence drops his hand and suddenly wears the expression of an exhausted parent dealing with their stubborn child in Toys-R-Us. "Then let me rephrase. I don't want you to see this."
"Well tough shit!" Adam bites back, "For the first and only fucking time, I'm in this place without a goddamn shackle around my foot or a motherfucker on a tape recorder giving me instructions like the fate of my fucking life is no different than a Sunday afternoon game of Monopoly!"
"Adam..."
"Don't you see, Lawrence? I'm in control. I'm here and I'm in control, not you, not Hoffman, and definitely not that cancer-ridden fuck who decided to make his problem everyone else's." Adam loathes how desperate he sounds, how he knows the frantic darting of his eyes gives away his uneasiness. Yet Lawrence stares back at him, composed and attentive, nothing but compassion and guilt behind his eyes.
"You are," he relents. "You are in control, Adam."
Adam nods feverishly. He's breaking into a sweat underneath his black attire, coldness be damned. "Yeah. Yeah, because I refuse to be here and not be in--"
He doesn't register the hands around his ankle until he's crashed to the filthy floor below, his head knocking against the tile hard enough to make his teeth clink together. He screams, flailing wildly as Hoffman pins him to the ground, everything happening faster than a blink. Lawrence is shouting, grabbing at Hoffman's coat to pull him back, but he's built like the lovechild of a caveman and a quarterback. He resorts to sending a deft kick to Hoffman's ribs with his good foot, and it's hard enough that Adam hears a crack. Hoffman cries out in shocked pain, and it's then that Adam takes the opportunity to dig his fingers into the jagged skin across Hoffman's cheek, pulling at the stitches with a ferocious yell. Blood and tender bits of flesh emerge and Adam doesn't stop until he can feel Hoffman's teeth against his glove. And even then, it's Hoffman being pulled off of him that makes him pause.
Adam blinks just in time to see Hoffman's back hit the bathtub. Hoffman's eyes blow wide and Adam assumes it's from the impact of the fall until he realizes Lawrence's hands are around Hoffman's neck. Hoffman sputters, clawing at Lawrence's hands, panicked in a way Adam never thought the man had the capacity for. And Adam's never actually seen someone turn purple, so he's a little shocked when the color starts ballooning Hoffman's face.
(He also had no idea someone could turn white as a fucking snowman either, but apparently this bathroom loves showing him people in colors they shouldn't be.)
"Lawrence!" Adam exclaims as he springs to his feet. He pulls on Lawrence's elbow, finds that Lawrence's hold on Hoffman's neck is nothing short of lethal. That, along with the borderline deranged glimmer in Lawrence's eyes makes Adam's stomach flip and he can't infer if it's from fear or something else. What he does know is that: Lawrence fully intends on killing Hoffman with his bare hands, and while he definitely has more than enough reason to, Adam knows it's for him. It's inappropriate for him to feel as flattered as he does right now. Nonetheless, he swallows and forces out, "Lawrence, stop! Not like this, man!"
Like the flash of a camera, Lawrence halts, hands loosening until they ultimately fall. Hoffman crumbles, gasping in lungfuls of the acrid air, drooling blood and spit all over the floor. Adam pulls Lawrence back until they're out of Hoffman's reach. It's then that Adam nearly trips over something that, upon further inspection, seems to be precisely what Hoffman had been reaching for.
"He wasn't trying to attack me, he was trying to get that," Adam mutters, staring down at the rusty hacksaw. Lawrence, still in some sort of daze, follows his eyes and makes a sound of resignation. A little bit more of a scuffle and the hacksaw would've ended up right in Hoffman's reach. He would've grabbed it the moment they left and done exactly what Lawrence had done, and this nightmare would continue. Adam suddenly wishes they'd just given Hoffman a classic sixty-second trap, rigged to be inescapable.
Lawrence picks it up and chucks it into the corridor, and the rest is a blur.
Adam says something to Hoffman, something biting and mean but deserved, though he doesn't remember what. He starts to laugh at the defeat looming behind the snarl on Hoffman's face and the way Lawrence chastises him. Adam's laughing so hard it hurts and he can hardly see and tears are about to run down his face and suddenly, he's in the corridor outside of the bathroom, pushed up against the wall. Lawrence kisses him hard enough to break the spell, everything in him threatening to spill out into a disgusting mess.
"I hate this fucking place," Adam wheezes against Lawrence's mouth, the remainder of the laughter in his chest coming out as a hysterical cry. "Don't you ever make me come back or I swear I'll fucking--"
"How about you don't force yourself into things you know you don't have to do," Lawrence suggests instead, sighing. He doesn't sound disappointed, though, and that's more than Adam could ask for. Lawrence draws back, smoothing down Adam's hair left unruly from the pig mask. His lips brush Adam's forehead as he asks, "Do you regret it?"
Adam sniffs. He has the front of Lawrence's coat in an iron-grasp, smearing Hoffman's blood all over it. "Not in a million years, bucko. Wouldn't have been able to sleep at night knowing you got to do this without me."
Lawrence hums, finally pressing a firm kiss to Adam's pallid skin. "You had me worried. Is your head alright?"
"Oh, externally, it's fine and dandy. Internally, prefer not to answer."
"Think I know the answer already." Lawrence quirks a small grin at Adam, who looks up at him with wonder.
"You're way too fucking calm for someone who almost choked a man out."
Lawrence's eyes darken and lower. His thumbs rub absentminded circles on Adam's waist, and it's then that Adam realizes how exhausted he is, how he's never been more excited to go home and curl up against Lawrence's body while Lawrence reads aloud medical jargon from whatever book he's reading. Jigsaw shit always turns Adam into such a fucking softie.
Lawrence says, "He laid his hands on you," and the uncharacteristic shakiness of his voice prevents Adam from pushing it further.
He, rather, kisses Lawrence again and mumbles, "Please get us the fuck out of here."
-
Something breaks in Adam on their way home, just not in the way he expected.
It's what has him attacking Lawrence with his mouth the moment they're inside their dark apartment, his pleas barely above a strained whisper, his fingers fumbling around the buttons of the coat Lawrence put on after he burned the other one. He burned their gloves as well and Adam couldn't stop watching his knuckles turn white around the steering wheel on their way home. The pig masks are gone, too. The implication behind that has Adam's chest feeling like it's about to parody the scene from Alien, just with magical rainbows and unicorns instead of an extraterrestrial.
There's still a faint odor on both of them, of the pig skin and the fire and Hoffman and the bathroom, but Adam wants it that way. He doesn't want to just wash the remnants of that place off of him like he did last time, because that wasn't enough. He wants Lawrence to reclaim him instead, to smother him until the all badness has no option but to surrender. His shoulder is beginning to ache and he can't tell if it's phantom pain or not.
"Please," Adam stutters out, hands roaming and lips meeting in messy kisses, "please, I can't, I don't want--"
Lawrence shushes him. Turns him around, directs him to lay over the couch armrest. Their living room is dark but the nightlight Adam keeps in the hallway illuminates a warm glow that reminds him of Lawrence's hair. He swallows, shaking his head.
"No, I need to see you."
Lawrence halts his actions - which happened to be lewdly pulling Adam's jeans off - and breathes, "Okay."
Adam turns around, flopping gracelessly onto his back, chest heaving as he stares up at Lawrence looming over him. The armrest separates them. It's too great a distance. "Need to see you," he repeats, "do you want me to ride, Larry?"
"Christ," Lawrence breathes as he finally rounds the couch to stand in front of Adam. He's undoing his slacks at lightning speed. "No, I want you like this."
Adam grins lazily while he shrinks against the opposite armrest. "Will your peg leg let that happen?"
Grabbing the lube they keep buried in the coffeetable drawer, Lawrence says, "You never last long enough in missionary for it to be a problem."
"Oh yeah, rich coming from you old man, I'm like Viagara in human form to you, I drive you so fuckin' wild, you get hard just seeing me make din--" Adam gasps.
Lawrence is smirking like the arrogant bastard he is as he pushes into him. He buries himself all the way, his body curling over Adam's. "It's hard not to imagine you in nothing but an apron while you're making couscous for dinner, that's all."
"Fuck you," Adam chokes out, but the audible relief in his voice betrays his words and has Lawrence's face softening. Adam grabs at the soft flesh of Lawrence's waist, nails digging in just where his back starts, throat already clogged with noises of pleasure. Lawrence doesn't move his hips. He, rather, covers Adam's mouth with his own while his hand wraps around Adam's length.
As their foreheads touch, Lawrence murmurs, "You're never going back there, Adam. I'm going to put as much distance between you and that place as I can."
Adam, devoted as ever, believes him easily.