Chapter Text
It was harder to take care of himself than he originally thought.
Even forcing himself to eat seemed like an uphill battle, where most days he could barely stomach some overly crunchy toast. A part of his brain tried to scream that he needed to eat, that he’d die unless he did the things to live. But then the other part of his brain remembered the game of survival inside the bathroom and that stunted his progress even further.
The days he saw Lawrence were better for him, though.
Those days, he could somewhat pretend he was okay, and if his mask slipped, he could look up and see that Lawrence’s was slipping as well.
“Partners,” he had said the other day in the coffee shop. The word stuck inside Adam’s mind like glue, where it would bounce and repeat endlessly, especially when he attempted to sleep.
The dark ceiling would flash with the light of passing cars, a constant heartbeat of noise that was punctuated by anything Lawrence had said that day.
“I called and you didn’t answer. I don’t— I’m sorry but I don’t like it when you do that.”
“How is your shoulder? Do I need to look at it?”
“I don’t know how to talk to you about anything other than.... It. I can’t stop thinking about it —”
In the middle of the night, Adam could recall the bathroom with vivid accuracy. The blankets around his body would start to feel like chains, and the phantom stench of blood and grime would choke and overwhelm him.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Lawrence’s voice echoed in his head.
“Me too,” Adam responded to the dark of his empty room.
A tickling thought in his mind told him he wished Lawrence was there with him. He blinked it away, rolled over from the feelings and clutched a spare pillow to his chest.
“Partners.”
“Partners.”
He slowly fell asleep.
And then all he could taste was blood and metal.
His eyes blinked hard, trying to get the fog out of them but it would not go away. Everything was fuzzy, almost like this was someone else’s memory.
Adam’s head felt heavy and he tried to reach up to find out why but his arms were bound to the chair he was in. He thrashed his arms around, trying to get free, but the rope was holding his wrists too tightly.
“Please, someone help me!!” He tried to call out into the darkness. The suffocating contraption on his head was mostly in shadow, but from what he could make out in the corners of his eyes, it was a terrifying and deadly looking device.
“Someone, help!!!” Adam screamed, only to realize he couldn’t hear his voice. The metal down his throat made it impossible to speak, causing him to struggle fruitlessly even more. Adam's heart was racing so fast he could hear it drumming in his ears.
A television set nearby suddenly blinked on, causing Adam’s head to fiercely jerk around to see it.
A small voice in his head whispered about the rules, so Adam expected the television to show him how to get out of this trap. That was how this works, his mind supplied, but he did not know how he knew that.
The picture displayed nothing but static, the droning noise unnaturally loud in his ears.
“Please!!” His plea remained in his head, as his mouth gagged around the hard metal. “Please, tell me the rules!! Tell me what to do!!”
The sound of static died suddenly, but a steady ticking noise behind his head filled the silence.
“I don’t have the key!!” Adam screamed, though he did not quite know what key he was talking about. “It wasn’t fair, I didn’t have the key!!”
Adam futilely fought against the rope around his wrists, desperate to break free, but his arms remained bound against the chair. Angry, panicked tears filled his eyes as he continued to writhe in place. The metal piece down his throat had long since cut into his mouth, causing blood to creep down the sides of his jaw.
“Please.... anyone!!” Adam could not even hear his own voice in his head over the ticking of the device.
It was impossible to know how much time he had left, pure terror rolling up his spine as he finally gave up on being saved. He did not even know what the contraption would do, though somewhere in his memory, he heard a voice say something about a reverse bear trap. Whose voice was that?
A light flickered on, blinding him briefly before he could focus on what it illuminated.
Lawrence stood in front of him, dark red blood staining his hands and shirt. The look of disgust on his face was so startling that Adam could hardly recognize the other man.
Before he could even begin to form a plea, Lawrence’s cool features twisted in a smirk.
“Game over.”
The ticking sound grinded to a halt.
Adam heard the loudest sound he would ever hear in his life, a whooshing crack that ended in pure darkness.
And then Adam woke up, his shirt soaked in sweat, chest heaving as he hoarsely screamed into the night.
“What happened to that woman?” Adam threw the question out there, not sure what kind of answer he wanted.
There was silence on the phone for a moment, before Lawrence’s voice hesitantly replied. “What woman?”
“You told me about someone before us who survived—” Adam’s voice broke as his hand nervously shook his cigarette out the window. “She survived some trap on her head.”
He pressed the cigarette to his lips and inhaled deeply as he waited for an answer.
“I’m not sure what happened to her.” Lawrence finally answered.
“I guess that’s a weird question though, huh?”
Lawrence scoffed and in Adam’s head, he could easily see the man rake his hand through his hair with the sound. “I think most of what we talk about could be considered weird.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He couldn’t help but frown as he remembered details of his dream. It was seriously bugging him, not to mention the brutality of the trap was haunting.
“Why do you want to know about her?”
Adam nearly dropped the cigarette out the window, caught off guard by the question. He took a deep breath before finally finding his words.
“I guess... I had a dream that I was in a trap that sounded like what you had described. So I just wanted to know.”
“You had a dream about being in a trap?”
This time Adam was quiet for a moment, taking an extra drag from his cigarette. He had to decide how much of his dream he wanted to divulge, for fear of Lawrence asking too many questions.
“Yeah, I just... I don’t know, it was a weird dream.” He almost added, ‘you were in it too’ but the memory of seeing that Lawrence with blood on his hands and a cold, murderous look in his eyes, stopped his voice from continuing the sentence.
“There’s nothing to tell about her, though. She’s... nothing.” Lawrence’s voice sounded strange, like these words were not ones he would have chosen.
“You said she thought she was like, reformed because of... him... didn’t you?” Adam flicked his cigarette out the window and then instantly regretted it, wanting the relief he got when he smoked. Instead he anxiously drummed his fingers against the window ledge. “I couldn’t imagine that. Thinking what happened could help people.”
“It’s just an excuse.” Lawrence said almost too easily. “It’s ego, trying to save others through extreme measures. But it’s not salvation, it’s damnation.”
“Yeah, I’m not better than before, I’m just fucked up in different ways now.”
There was a wry laugh over the phone, one that Adam couldn’t help but chuckle and join in.
“I know that’s right. I feel the same way.” Lawrence sighed and it sounded like he stood up with a small grunt. “Anyway, I need to go. We can talk more later, I’m sure.”
“Oh, yeah of course, that’s fine.” Adam awkwardly tried to wrap up their conversation, which was hard considering how his thoughts were still racing from his dream.
The line went dead after their quick goodbyes, and Adam slowly shut his cell phone before tossing it behind him on his bed. After a moment, he fell onto the worn mattress with it, but his mind was still reeling from the dream and the conversation with Lawrence.
He yearned for something to occupy him until he actually crashed, but his apartment was barren of most distractions.
Except his photography room.