He nods.

"...I've got a...fiancé. Editor. And I don't want you to fuck him over after I die. No matter what he does. His family, either."

"Whyever would I do that?"

Who is this man? He must be something truly special, to be these things to Jigsaw.

"Because he wouldn't lie on the stand. Probably not to the cops, either. And he promised not to fuck me over. Not so much you."

This seems ... complex. And confusing.

"I understand."

"Promise me that one. Don't hurt him, or his dad, or his brother. Don't try to teach them a lesson."

He sits there for a moment, staring fixedly at the floor, thin fingers laced and flexing against each other, at war with himself.

"And. Don't test any of them, unless they've really given up. Unless there's no other way."

What is this? What does it mean?

"I swear it."

"...okay," he says, shoulders dropping towards the ground. "Okay. Good."

He just sits there for a moment, silent on the floor, highlighted black and white by the sun streaming in through the window.

Jean does the only thing he can think of, and goes to make him coffee.

He's dragged himself up onto a chair by the time he comes back.

He thanks him, when he takes it, and huddles over the steaming cup.

He is halfway done. One more thing is taken care of. Slowly, he gathers the will to face the rest.

The coffee is strong, and black, and bad.

Jean sits with him, while he drinks it, and looks straight through him.

Bad coffee, in this instance, is almost better than good coffee. Wakes him up to the world. Makes him notice.

And then, at last, he takes a deep breath, and puts the mug aside, and sits up.

"...so. What am I showing you today."

"...teach me the Bear Trap. Like you taught me Flashdance."

He says her name with reverence.

He nods.

"Yeah. Good call."

He pulls himself up out of the chair, stabilizes himself for a minute on the back.

"...not gonna put that one on, though. I've got some foam heads."

Jean is capable of accepting this disappointment graciously.

He's gracious, too, about offering Jigsaw his arm for the stairs.

He takes it.

This means, of course, that they'll ascend side by side.

Well.

Neither of them are going quickly.

It's its own kind of exhausting, to stop on one step and stay so still.

By the time they reach the top, he has to sit again.

It's a sign of how at home he is, here, that he sits in the chair he does, framing his face with knives.

Jean sits at his feet, leans his cheek against the side of the chair.

"...okay," he says, after a minute, as he stands. "This one should go on the workbench."

When he lifts the Reverse Bear Trap off its table, before he leads them both to the table it was build on, he puts it in Jean's hands to carry.

It's lighter than you'd expect for a machine of its size. But it's still not light.

No. It isn't.

The metal sears his hands like a freeze brand. He chafes them together, when he puts it down, trying to warm them up.

He gathers tools, oil, a wet towel from the bathroom, lays them all out as if on a surgeon's tray.

Then they begin.

The Bear Trap doesn't disassemble quite so completely as Flashdance does. There are things welded in place that can't be unwelded for this project. But some pieces do come away.

The first one, he handles himself. He cleans the dried blood away with the wet cloth, dries it, oils it, sets it down on the table.

From then on, he hands each piece off to Jean, tells him whether to clean it with water and whether to oil it, and explains its function as he does. Only when it's taken care of does he put it aside with the rest.

Jean copies the way Jigsaw handles the rags, his small circular motions, how much force he uses.

Flakes of dried blood accumulate on the cloth, wedge themselves under his fingernails. The oil softens his hands. He hasn't been keeping up with his moisturizer regimen.

He brings out his sketches, once everything is laid out on the table, and explains the construction of the trap, where it holds tension and locks in place, where he welded and why.

For reassembly, they use Jean's hands, not his.