Summary: Lawrence misses Adam. Every day. A brief exploration of his lingering feelings after the final events of Saw 3D. (Includes tweaks to the canon).
Author's Note: I changed some stuff for the sake of chainshipping. In this fic, I wrote that Lawrence and Adam were kind of a 'thing', and I tried to explain why our favorite doctor never came back for Adam. I don't have the fic's backstory fully figured out. Might edit this or add chapters.
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Amanda may have been overly emotional to a fault, especially after the ridiculous stunt she pulled by killing Lynn, but Hoffman was of another species.
Lawrence rarely interacted with the other apprentices, but Hoffman quickly proved himself to be an unstable maniac. He felt nothing for those tested, reveling in their suffering.
Hoffman did not understand that the pain inflicted was only a method to guide them, to show them a better way, and John had warned him of this. Discreetly, of course. He was advised to watch over Jill and act immediately should anything bad happen to her. In return, John promised full transparency. But he would have to go back to the bathroom. Where his life had changed forever.
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The days after the bathroom passed by in a fevered blur. His hair stuck to his sickly skin as John tended to his wounds. All he could offer were weak grunts and whines as John worked.
He asked about Adam as soon as his voice granted him to speak. He knew Adam was surely dead, and he was terrified of John's likely confirmation, but he had to know for sure. Had to hear it said aloud. And he did.
Adam died. Hungry and bleeding.
Lawrence and Alison divorced shortly after. For Diana. He could go back to the way it was before. Comfortable with quiet hums of longing. But he knew that if he wanted to become a better man, for Diana, that he could no longer lie to himself. He couldn't pretend anymore, now that he knew what it really felt like to be in love.
Lawrence never went back to that bathroom. Never saw for himself. It would have hurt too much.
Instead, he kept himself busy, dedicated to furthering John's work. Adam died, but he hadn't played the game correctly. That wasn't John's fault, it was Lawrence's. Maybe if Adam had cut his foot...Maybe if Lawrence had stayed...Maybe then, their last kiss wouldn't be shared in a fearful goodbye.
There had to be another way in which Adam could have lived. John wouldn't have killed him. Lawrence knows John too well for that.
Still...he never asked. John never told.
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His involvement in John's work was solitary. He had fallen into a schedule. The hospital, Diana (if he had her that week), meetings on Thursdays, and assisting John with his more surgically imaginative traps. Most days he would just walk in, record the live feed for John, and leave just as he came.
Except for Lynn.
He saw himself in her. She was faking it, just like he had. Cheating on her husband. Popping pills. Addicted to artificial solutions. Desperate for a spark, something real. Desperate to feel, and unwittingly hurting her daughter in the process, but unlike himself and Alison, maybe Jeff and Lynn could repair their marriage. John already decided to test Jeff, but it was Lawrence who walked into John's office with Lynn's photograph.
Things didn't end well. Jeff and Lynn's daughter, Corbett, was orphaned in the process. Amanda had killed everyone in that room, including herself.
He had to hear it from Hoffman first.
