This time, as before, Jigsaw is there at the top to catch his hand.

Then they return to her side.

He runs him through reassembly.

Most of the metal supports back on, first, to hold things still. Then the pump assembly back on — he’ll teach him how he wired it, later, he promises. Then lean it back, more supports, here.

There’s a chain already dangling from the ceiling to hang the jug. Jigsaw sends Jean to fill it with water in the upstairs bathroom.

This is difficult.

He brings it, anyway, the perfectly ordinary jug sloshing with liquid, occluding the light just like --

-- he brings the jug.

He takes it from him — “Good. Thanks” — and, after checking the seal on the tubes coming from the bottom, hangs it from the hook, connects the pumps and flips some switches.

Then he pulls his shirt off.

“You can’t put them in shirt on. Fabric holds the acid, makes the burns way worse. Not survivable.”

His ribs are all visible. The chemo port stands out stark under the skin below his collarbone.

He knows, then, something he should have known before: he doesn't have long to learn.

And something else -- 

"You checked?"

(You check, if you give a shit.)

“Researched. Tried some experiments. Don’t have to use bodies on it, not if you’re being smart.”

He sits down in the chair.

“Shoulder straps, first. Makes it easier to manage the other stuff while they’re knocked out. I was glad I had those. Couldn’t test it that well on myself.”

He comes closer, and he touches her for the first time, and he fastens the shoulder straps.

He pushes against them, testing the hold.

“Arm cuffs next. Then ankles and wrists — find the right point to attach the ankles, there’s a couple.”

He binds him in, arms and ankles and wrists.

It's like seeing double: Flashdance, once, from the inside, seared irreparably behind his eyes; Flashdance, twice, alive before him, holding Jigsaw in her embrace.

"Like that."

“Yeah,” he says, pulling against the cuffs, checking them all over, one by one.

“Collar’s not adjustable. So there’s a couple sizes on the shelf. Find the one that fits.”

He can size it by eye, with a glance at Jigsaw's throat.

He touches his collar, anyway, before he brings the right one.

He pulls against that one, too, when it’s on and bolted back. Just to be sure.

“When you bolt on the screen, make sure the tubes are really tight on the sprayheads.”

He’s completely helpless, and he knows it. Jean could find the acid, wherever the remainder is in the workshop, and force Jigsaw to make his own terrible choice.

This is not what Jean is thinking about. He's thinking about how a wrench works, and making the tubes really tight on the sprayheads.

(He's thinking about how it felt, when he met Flashdance, when she held him like this and changed him.)

The screen goes on. He has the whole image now: how it looks from the outside.

He lifts his right arm, and the pin pulls.

There’s a secondary screen on the back of the chair, one he could never have seen, the timer in miniature. It begins ticking down.

29:59.

29:58.

“Timer on?”

It feels like falling, looking at those numbers: like falling, and it doesn't stop.

There are people who skydive.

"It's on."

He laughs, dizzily, pulling again against his restraints, looking up at the jug swinging above him.

“Fuck. Scares the shit out of me even when she’s not loaded.”

He takes hold of the lever, and pulls,

and startles with a sharp gasp when the icy water crashes down on his chest,

before he laughs, and drips, and laughs, and laughs.

"Do it again," he says, like a child -- and, then, reverting to his native tongue, "Encore."

He does it again.

He breathes into it, this time, the gasp and the shiver, and goosebumps raise like welts on his chest and arms.

"Étais-je aussi beau?"

He kneels by his side, watches the water drip to the floor.

“That’s French,” he says, hand still tight on the lever.

"Yes," Jean agrees, vaguely, and he looks up at the jug, waiting for the next flood.

He looks at him, out of the corner of his eye,

and then pulls again.

No gasp, but his whole body shivers, this time. There are no hairs to raise.