Chapter Text
It's been about a year or so since the bathroom trap. Adam and Lawrence were driving home from the jigsaw survivor group that Lawrence insisted they go to. Adam didn't get the point of it, but he humored Lawrence anyway. Adam sat in the passenger seat as Lawrence drove. For a while Adam had insisted on driving the other man places for... obvious reasons. However, once Lawrence had been through enough physical therapy to not tumble under his own weight when standing, Adam eventually started to trust the older man in the drivers seat.
Adam had put a CD into the small player built into the car to give him something to focus on that wasn't the unbearable weekly hour and a half of haphazard group therapy with other victims. If he was being honest with himself, having to tell his story over and over again to people he didn't even really care about made him feel worse. The nightmares still persisted, he still slept with at least one light on, he has a baseball bat next to his and Lawrence's shared bed 'just in case' and it wasn't getting better.
Before the other man suggested living together Adam had spent more than enough nights sitting in front of his bedroom door holding a kitchen knife close to his chest. He doesn't like talking about the few months he'd spent completely alone and isolated in his apartment. He didn't like talking about the pain almost as much as he didn't like talking about the trap.
Adam looked over at Lawrence from the passenger seat and smirked at the mans furrowed eyebrows that he assumed were a reaction to the CD he'd decided to choose for the ride home.
"If you're gonna drag me to group I'm gonna make you sit through the music I like. It's only fair." Adam quipped sarcastically.
"It's just... different." Lawrence responded in an unconvincing murmur. Adam chuckled softly to himself at the older mans response.
"Whatever you say, Larry."
The rest of the drive home was comfortably quiet, give or take the music in the background. Not long later they arrive at their apartment building. It was a quaint place. Not big, not small. Not run down, not fancy. It was perfect.
The two men went up the elevator to the third floor where there apartment resided. After a few quick steps down the hall they arrived in front of the door and the younger of the two unlocked it before they both swiftly walked inside. Adam yawned and made an act of stretching out his arms.
"I'm exhausted. That group I think was worse than last time." Adam said, looking over at Lawrence as the man sat down on their small couch.
"You only say that because you actually had to talk this time." Lawrence said back as he started to take off his shoes
Adam huffed in response and started to do the same, Untying his boots before kicking them off and pushing them near the door before taking Lawrence's own shoes and placing them next to his own. The other man hadn't been wrong, he did have to talk in that annoying group today because some weirdo Bobby Dickwad, or whatever his name was, had insisted he talk about the trap. Not only that, the stranger had made him talk about what it was like when he was alone in the bathroom before Lawrence had come back for him. He didn't really like talking about how he drank dirty bath water and was driven to eat the cold rotted corpse of a man whose head he'd bashed in, in front of a bunch of people he didn't know and didn't like. Lawrence had said he was proud of him after, but it didn't make things feel any better. Nobody knew those things but him until about half an hour ago.
"I'm going to bed, don't wait on me for dinner." Adam said before padding his way into the bedroom, not waiting for a response.
He collapsed onto his side of the bed and curled under the covers. He appreciated warmth anytime he could get it. It wasn't like it was always freezing, he just preferred being overheated to being cold in any way. He laid on his side with the covers pulled up to his chin as he tried to lull himself into sleep by humming the first song that came to mind under his breath. Eventually, his eyelids started to grow heavy and the familiar sting of sleepiness started to erupt in his eye sockets. After a couple short moments, he fell asleep.
When he opened his eyes, he stared up at the ceiling he almost didn't recognize. Florescent lights that burned his eyes went away as quick as they came as a deep voice repeated words all too familiar to his ears.
"game over."
He couldn't control the screams that quickly erupted from his throat. Before he knew what was happening the uncomfortable feel and sound of week old flesh tearing off of bone under his fingers took over his senses. The smell almost made him gag as Zepp's flesh came closer to his open mouth. He couldn't control his body, no matter how much he tried to force his mouth closed or how much he tried to scream, he couldn't move his body unless it decided it wanted to move.
The cold metallic taste of blood and rotting meat arose onto his tongue and he heaved dryly. His teeth clamped around the chewy rubbery flesh as he forced himself to swallow. There was nobody else living in the room, but he could swear someone was watching him. He felt it deep in his bones and there was no doubt about it in his mind that somebody else was in the room looking at him. Time felt like it was moving too fast and yet insanely slow at the same time. His head pounded and his chest ached as he clawed at the hair on the side of his head.
"what do you want!?" He yelled hoarsely. There was no response, and everything went dark.
When he woke up a scream was already erupting from his lungs as he shot upwards and fell out of bed. Heaving like he couldn't breathe and gagging like he was about to vomit. Lawrence had been in the room almost the entire time Adam had been asleep, mostly because the younger man called out his name early on in his slumber which was a dead giveaway that the sleeping man was having a nightmare about the bathroom again. The older man knelt down as best he could and took Adam into his arms as the man gasped for air and scratched at old faded scars on his arms like he wanted them to open back up. Something in the younger mans mind convinced him that if he wasn't bleeding that meant he wasn't alive. Lawrence held the mans hands carefully in his own as he whispered reassuring words to a panicking Adam.
"Hey, hey, Adam, breathe. I'm right here, you're safe, you aren't there anymore. I've got you." He whispered as the boy in his arms sobbed and buried his head into the mans collared shirt.
Lawrence quietly hushed Adam as he rocked him gently back and forth in his arms like one would to a weeping baby. On any other day Adam would've pushed Lawrence away and called him a sap, but right now all he could focus on was the warmth emitting from the man that was holding him in his arms. After what felt like forever, Adam's breathing started to slow to a healthy pace and it didn't take much longer after that for him to calm down. Once Lawrence let go of his hands he clung onto the older mans shirt and sniffled a few times as dry tears clung to his red cheeks.
"I-I'm sorry, Larry, I-"
"No, none of that. Don't be sorry."
Adam nodded and peered up at Lawrence before smiling weakly and moving his head back to rest against his chest.
A few moments pass before both men agree to try to go to bed. After Adam helps Lawrence with his prosthetic they both lay down. Adam curls into Lawrence which the latter gratefully accepts and before long they both doze into peaceful rest.