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The meeting place had been taped to the front of his door.
Daniel had seen it as he was coming home from…well, from nowhere honestly. He just spent a lot of time wandering now that his mom was willing to let him out of her sight again. It’d been a few weeks since he’d really left the house without her watching him like a fucking hawk.
(He’s out of school right now. He’s taking a psychological leave, or at least that’s what they’re calling. There’s not really a word for what he’s doing. Best he can tell, he’ll start again in the fall. He doesn’t bother thinking about that right now, it feels worlds and worlds away.)
He’d been in the hospital for a few days, most of which were spent drifting in and out of sleep. He hadn’t wanted to be awake, to be honest.
(The first time he woke up to a bright light searing his eyes after hours in darkness. The second was to his mom’s crying face and a throbbing ache all over his body as he lay in a hospital bed.)
At least he got a break from the questioning that had gone down at the hospital. He didn’t know anything. He didn’t know where his dad was. He didn’t know where Amanda was, or why they cared. That was when Rigg told him the truth, who Amanda was, what she was doing.
Rigg had looked at him with sadness in his eyes, like he expected Daniel to break down and cry again. But he didn’t have that left in him, and somehow he felt Rigg was disappointed in him. That hurt worse than his dad being gone, and that really made him feel like shit. More like shit, anyway.
He had been allowed to go home, and that’s when the notes had started. Each signed by Amanda. Each asking to meet him.
When he first saw them, he ripped them down, and spent a full night in a haze of paranoia. Nothing happened. Nobody snuck in through his window to whisk him away, no threatening messages, nothing.
It’s almost disappointing when the emotional high crashes down around him. Anything is better than the vague numbness that takes over his every single day.
After that, whenever they appeared, he tore them down and shoved them into the trash before his mom could see. She’s worried enough as it is, she doesn’t need any more shit.
(She tries to keep her smile up for him, saying they’ll find his dad, that everything will be okay. But Daniel’s too old to fall for that. Even still, he smiles and tries to agree for her sake.)
To be honest, as bad as it sounds, the notes don’t weigh on his mind. Not as much as other things. Some of the stuff is to be expected, according to his therapist. Difficulty sleeping, agitation, things like that.It pisses him off, though, the way everything got attributed to Jigsaw. Even things that had been bothering him long, long before all that shit.
(It all seems pretty minor now. Like how his body never feels like his, like he’s missing something he doesn’t have a name for. Like how his stomach turns over whenever he’s referred to as a ‘son’. He can’t possibly bring that up when everyone is worried about him dying or being torn to pieces. Especially if he can’t pin down WHY it bothers him.) wit
A.k.a.
Maybe that’s what has him not throwing out this meeting place, instead turning it over again and again in his fingers. Maybe he wants someone to talk to who won’t ask about Jigsaw or expect him to talk about it.
There’s a few words jotted under the address. Tell the door you know me.
W
It’s a little after eleven at night, and his mom is definitely asleep at this point. He throws on a sweatshirt and leaves, closing the door quietly behind him. It’s a warm enough night, and he’s hoping the walk will do him good somehow.
…
The meeting place turns out to be a bar. Great. It’s quiet now, unsurprising considering it’s a weekday night. He follows the instructions, and even though he’s sure he looks so underage, buried in the mound of his sweatshirt and with his face shaved repeatedly, he’s let inside.
There’s almost nobody there, which is fine with him. But he spots Amanda right away. She’s sitting at a corner table, as bundled in her hoodie as Daniel himself is. She looks up as he walks in and gives him a half smile.
(He hadn’t noticed when they were together, not when there was so much to notice, but she has faint scars lining the corners of her mouth. So she wasn’t full of shit about being in her own trap, Daniel figures.)
If he’s being completely honest, he doesn’t know what to say as he walks over and sits down across from her. It doesn’t feel right to act like nothing happened, but he’s so fucking sick of talking about it.
“Hey.” It seems like as good a place as any to start.
“Hey.” She repeats back at him.
There’s a few beats of silence where Daniel considers what the fuck he’s doing here, and if he should just leave.
“I’m sorry about your dad.” She says, her voice rough. Daniel blinks at her, and feels a sudden and fucking insane urge to laugh. That, coming from her, might as well be the funniest thing he’s ever heard. And even funnier is how he’s not even angry.
“It’s fucked up, but…I don’t really miss him.” Daniel admits, his voice pitching low at the end. He’s never spoken those words to anyone. Even his mom, who he’s sure knows it and understands even as he doesn’t say anything.
“Yeah?” Amanda raises an eyebrow. And once the door is open, Daniel finds his mouth running almost outside of his control.
“I don’t…I don’t want him dead or anything. But he was always giving me shit about everything. I could never be the son he wanted.” Daniel says. For as long as he can remember, he disappointed his dad in one way or another.
(He was never smart enough, never athletic enough, never manly enough. Even when his dad wasn’t yelling at him, there was always an air that surrounded him that spoke to Daniel loud and clear. That he was a disappointment, even when he tried. And when he did try it always felt like he was putting on a mask. Something false and confining.)
“Yeah, that sounds like any fucking dad. Always wanting to live through their sons.” Amanda says dryly, like she would know.
“I don’t know. Sometimes I wish I was a girl. It seems….better.” The words send a flush of embarrassment through him. It’s a stupid fucking thing to think, and a stupider thing to say out loud.
Amanda fixes him with a long look, like she’s trying to find the exact right thing to say. Daniel feels a spark of embarrassment start blooming inside him. Fuck, he’s oversharing, and what he’s oversharing is fucking stupid anyway. It’s not like he could just wave a magic wand and be a girl even if he wanted-
“Y’know, you can just be one.” Amanda says, as casually as though she’s talking about the weather.
“What?” He can’t think of anything else to say, let alone how to fight the rising tide of…something in his chest. A mixture of shock and anger for something he can’t name. But also something a little bit hopeful squirms under the rest.
“A girl.” Amanda says with more emphasis.
“Yeah, right.” The feeling in his chest shifts to annoyance, for a reason he can’t place. If he was gonna feel anything strongly negative towards Amanda, this feels like a weird fucking thing. Not the kidnapping or the lying or the fact that she at least had something to do with his dad vanishing.
“I mean it.” Amanda’s voice still has a light lilt, but it’s not teasing or joking in any way. That only irritates him more, makes him feel more and more like she’s fucking with him somehow.
“I-even if I was, it’d be years before I’d have any type of surgery or anything.” He says, not sure why he’s arguing with her if it’s not something that concerns him.
“So? Never stopped me.” Amanda says. Daniel blinks before the information fully sinks into his brain. He never would’ve thought that of Amanda, never would’ve thought about her being anything even close to being considered someone’s ‘son’.
“Look, my dad fucking sucked too. He hated me. It was like he knew before I did.” Amanda has a dry smile on her face. She’s looking at him with something like knowing in her eyes, and he feels uneasy.
(The fact that this moment is when he feels uneasy and not walking into a bar in the middle of the night to meet a serial killer’s accomplice is a little funny, he can admit that.)
“So, you know. I left him behind, and even if I don’t love everything about my life, it’s fucking mine. And no one can take that from me.” She says seriously, her eyes darkened with emotion.
When he can’t find anything to respond with, she sighs. Just a little bit, just like his mom when she’s not mad, she’s just disappointed. Like he’s missing some sort of divine wisdom that she’s shared with him.
“Look, if you ever need someone to talk to-” She starts to say, and he suddenly can’t bear to hear what she’s about to say. Frankly he’s just heard that phrase too many times, and hearing it here suddenly feels too real.
“I should really go.” Daniel cuts her off.
Amanda looks at him sadly, but she makes no move to stop him as he stands up abruptly and tries to leave without looking too frazzled or drawing any sort of attention from the few other people here. Nobody even gives him a second glance.
The walk home passes in no time. He can barely feel his feet hitting the concrete. He has no idea why he feels so…shaken by the whole thing. Maybe it’s because he never thought he would share anything like that with anyone, let alone someone like Amanda. His mom, who’s been nothing but kind and supportive, knows nothing about this.
(That’s his fault really, for not having either of the courage or the words for it.)
He falls into bed without even taking his shoes off, He didn’t even realize how tiring everything felt, it all crashes down on him like a wave that pulls him away. He’s grateful for it, he wants to do whatever he can to let this night go, to dismiss it as a weird fluke or even a dream.
(And if he dreams about his hair being longer and wearing pants that don’t need to be so shapeless, that doesn’t mean anything.)