X-Men: Renewed
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HerpdaDerp
Posts : 538
Join date : 2013-09-24
Age : 28
Location : United States

 ∘◦❁◦∘ CoffeeShop: The Bakery  ∘◦❁◦∘  Empty ∘◦❁◦∘ CoffeeShop: The Bakery ∘◦❁◦∘

Sun Jan 17, 2021 8:09 pm
The story starts with a bit of rain.


Were he of a type that preferred the use of metaphor and flowery descriptions, he might describe the way the streetlights had turned on long ago, their soft warm light flickering as the drops fell past to hit the pavement in a staccato beat. Maybe he would describe the way the rain smelled: wet, cold, and lacking the petrichor that followed such a storm in greener pastures. Against the grey steel of these sentinel skyscrapers, rain was merely a nuisance that prompted the occasional flick of an umbrella opening. Hell, if he were more of a romantic, he might have been glancing out his stalled car window with an eye for some star crossed meet cute that movies were so terribly fond of.

But no. His fingers tap through a list of tow trucks and mechanic services on his phone, searching for the closest. He is unfortunately cursed to be a pragmatist and as a career driven man in his mid forties, he doubts any sort of romance is likely to fall from the sky on the back of a little rainstorm. One pale hand pushes back paler strands of hair as he leans back into the driver’s seat with the sigh of a man all too used to the world disappointing him. There had been leftover takeout in the refrigerator he had been hoping to have tonight after work. Suppose a coffee and a few emails will have to do in place of it before he has to shove himself into bed.

Thunder rolls overhead. Blue eyes catch their reflection in the rearview window before rolling away. He didn’t need anymore reminders of how little sleep he had been getting. A moment later, the other end picks up.


“Hello? You tow, right?”


══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════


Perhaps the story starts earlier.


A young journalist looking for a story in a war torn country, a translator just as young assigned to make sure language isn't the reason he gets himself killed. Blue eyes meet dark green, hands meet, pleasantries are exchanged. Neither thinks much of the other, considers it another job, but there’s only so much time one can go standing in awkward silence. It’s the translator that breaks first.

He talks of his family, of his young wife and how beautiful she is in his eyes. How strong, how talented, how capable. He talks of his children, of those already here and the one on the way. He tells stories of domesticity and them trying to make the best of it despite, well, all of it. The journalist doesn’t understand at first, not the family, but he will. He’ll laugh eventually, ask the translator for pictures and names and how they’re all doing.

“Oh, you know Anisah.” the translator will hum in that low bass as they settle against their van, watching the clear line of stars despite the harsh light of military fluorescents behind them. “Can’t get her to sit for more than a few moments, I swear. Gets worse with each new baby.” He laughs, the few curls that came loose from the bun tied back behind him bouncing as he does.

Sam laughs, and Lazarus is unable to look away for a moment. Blue eyes take in the relaxed line of him; broad shoulders covered in desert camo that sits open to expose the tank top and dog tags that swung and clanked soft with each little movement, the faintest five o clock shadow from not having shaved that morning, eyes tired but still managing to see the good, the light in things.


Sam laughs, and something unnamable curls uncomfortably in him at the sight of it.



══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════


He catches the harsh light of the high beams behind him a good handful of minutes later. Late as it is, there’s very little traffic to stir the rain collecting at the side of the road where he’s parked. The truck pulls in front of him, backs up slow and fills the cab of his own with bright red light.

“Thank god.” he sighs as he exits his car to greet the towman. Rain patters his expensive coat and slicks his bone white hair to his head, but he pays it little mind. “You would not believe the day that I’ve had.”

The door slams, he finally turns to look past the curtain of rain, and blue eyes catch dark green.


“Lazarus?” the towman asks, eyes wide and surprised.

“Samael?” he manages to breathe back.


The man in front of him is older than what he remembers but really, aren’t they all? From here, he can see the startled set to his face. One dark hand still rests on the outer edge of the truck door that he had climbed from. Rain spatters soft against the worn leather of the lucky thrift store find of a leather jacket he has pulled over those broad shoulders, hiding freckles and scars that Lazarus knew were there. His hair is still long, might be longer, but there are those same curls that would never stay tied back. Lazarus watches him gape at the other before the man’s face pulls back into a small smile. Were he any closer, Lazarus would be able to trace the lines that wrinkled the corners of his eyes even at forty something.


Standing at the door of his own car, he hopes they’re there. If anyone in this world deserved a life that set those creases in early, it was Sam.


“Even all these years later, I’m still pulling you out of trouble.” The heavy tread of his boots against pavement is punctuated only by the soft splash through an occasional puddle. “What’s the damage?”

“Flat, I think.” He spares a glance towards where one of the tires is most definitely lower than the rest. “Nevermind that though. Samael, what, how are you?”

The man in front of him shrugs, a smile still on his face. “Forgive me for trying to be professional! Give me a moment to get it hooked up to the back, we can talk in the cab. Keys.” One hand extends towards him and it’s all Lazarus can do in his stupor to pull the small ring of keys from his pocket and set them against the man’s open palm. “Good, now get in the truck.”

Sam’s hand is a brand when he sets it on his shoulder to move him out of the way.

“Right. Yes. Cab. I’ll… I’ll do that.”

“Please do. There’s towels in the back, help yourself.”

“Towels, right.” Lazarus mumbles as he opens the passenger door and slides into the truck of a man he hadn’t seen in a decade or two. He settles wet into the worn fabric seats, takes in the line of papers shoved up into the dash along with a small threadbare stuffed animal that looked as though it had been made by the clumsy hands of a child. He sits there and attempts to settle the quick beat of his own heart while Sam does the job of pulling his car onto the back as though this is just another Tuesday.


“God,” wet hands rake down his face and settle as he silently screams.


══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════


He hadn’t been expecting nearly this much on this assignment. It hadn’t been his first overseas, nor had it been his first as a war correspondent. Far from it really; he had made a career on this sort of writing and reporting. Fingers move quickly over the keys as he types out his latest draft to add to the folder he needs to edit: stories of violence, death, horrors that he had been told and seen.

The space next to him dips as a body slides in next to him. He doesn’t even have to look, he knows who it is.


“I took a picture of them for you, do you want to see?”

“Of course I do.”


Sam takes his phone from his pocket. It’s a beat up older model and the screen is cracked when he turns it towards him, but the look on his face is so proud that Lazarus finds himself hardly noticing the hairline fractures bisecting the displayed image. The woman smiling at the camera is gorgeous, smile radiant as she holds a chubby, wide eyed toddler in her arms. There are others around her, the oldest can’t be more than four or five.

“That’s Qadira, my oldest.” He points to the oldest girl. Her expression is a little too serious for a four year old as she watches her younger sibling trying to pull himself up his mother’s skirt. “That one climbing is Malik. Nothing but trouble, I swear.” He huffs a little laugh before pointing out the two youngest, one a little girl with hands outstretched towards the camera and the other the swaddled baby in Anisah’s arms. “Suhana and Kadijda. We were thinking of Qamar for the newest, we’re told it’s a boy.”


“They’re lovely.” Lazarus hums. He means it, they are.

“Mmm. Once this is over though, as much as I love our home, I was thinking of moving. America, yeah?”

“You were? Where to?”

“You’re the expert, you tell me.” Sam’s elbow in his side is gentle.

“Well, I’m originally from New York. I could help you settle when you get back, if you wanted to look me up.”

“Oooh, an offer from the very important author.” He ignores Lazarus’s quiet protest of ‘journalist’. “How could I refuse such hospitality?”



══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════


They meet again after that. From texts throughout the day, Lazarus learned that soon after Sam had moved his family over, he had opened a garage in New York. ‘We’ve been happy’ he reads in the dark quiet of his own room, the text on the screen more clinical than the soft warmth he’d come to associate with the man. Happy for a long time. Sam sent him texts telling him of birthdays long passed, of his children’s accomplishments. There were pages and pages about how Suhana was an accomplished artist, about Qamar’s future ambition to open a flower shop. Malik worked with Sam at the garage, he knew from pictures sent of the young man grinning in oil stained coveralls. Malik had his father’s hair tied back and that same grin but lacking the sad edge it seemed to hold whenever they met for drinks now. It didn’t used to be that way.


Anisah is conspicuously omitted from any life updates Sam sends him.


The thought is turned over in his mind on slower evenings when it’s only him in the dark of his high rise apartment. When he has no more mind for any of the words typed in the document and the glare from the screen sends him teetering to the edge of a migraine, he closes his eyes and wonders what had happened. He had met Anisah once or twice before he and Sam had been separated by hospital staff and she… she had been everything he had hoped she wasn’t: short yet holding herself with enough self possession that it made up for a few inches between them, strong enough to keep toddlers balanced in her arms, herding her and Sam’s small children with enough patience and grace to last several lifetimes over. When she had introduced herself, Lazarus had met dark eyes and felt the fire that simmered silently behind them. There was a wit there that could cut if she let it, and yet she was gracious enough to keep it caged behind a warm, welcoming smile. That day, he had swallowed his own chasming fault like the bitter pills he’d swallow now, hoping against hope that it’d dull the pain in his chest as well as the ones prescribed.

In the end, it’s one of the kids that tells him. Qamar is still in school and as such, still tends to hang around the house most evenings. He’d been waiting in the small foyer looking at one of the family photos when the young man had passed by, bag of chips in hand and tired eyes glancing over the whole of him appraisingly. He’d never been one to squirm under another’s judging eyes, but there was something about the youngest of Samael’s children that peeled back a layer of skin, tore him apart. Perhaps it was the way he seemed to be the only one to inherit his father’s eyes. Maybe it was the way the child seemed to not give two shits about social conventions. Whatever it was, Laz is pinned there in front of the shoe rack and wall of clearance frames.


“Umii’s gone.” Qamar says simply. Two fingers pull a single chip from the bag.

“Oh.” Lazarus says.

“I was like, three?” he shrugs. “Baba won’t talk about it, but Qadira says it was bad. Illness.”

This whole conversation has him unmoored. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Mmm.” Another chip is slipped from the bag. “It’s alright.”


“What are you doing bothering guests?” Sam comes up from behind the young man and swats him gently away with something muttered low in a language Laz has recently been trying to learn more of. “Go, homework, I know you have it. I’ll be back before twelve, you better be in bed.”

Lazarus watches Qamar slip back towards the bedrooms he knows are at the end of the hallway until he feels a steady hand at his back leading him towards the door.


“Rudy’s tonight?”


The beer is cheap, Laz knows. Hardly a craft cocktail in sight and yet he finds himself leaning towards the man beside him, drawn in by gravity he’s been slowly orbiting since he’d answered the phone a year ago. It’s not about the beer. Not even about the bitter taste that swirls at the back of his tongue when he thinks again of the young man eating his chips, of the woman smiling cheerfully in the family photos on the wall, of the way that he savors the hand above his jacket a little too much. Guilt curls nauseatingly around his throat like a set of fingers tucked above his pulse and ready to tighten. He swallows.


“Sounds perfect.”


══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════


They hadn’t seen it, no one had save for Sam a moment too late. All Lazarus hears before everything crashes abruptly into blinding light and static is the panicked voice of his translator, his friend, yelling for all of them to look out. Lazarus had heard heavy boots, felt a strong hand yank him back and to the ground, and then everything was white. Nothing prepared him for it, nothing could compare to the sheer white out of his senses from the explosion buried in the sand. For a moment, he floats. Senseless, weightless before everything crashes back in with a gut wrenching clarity. His body is heavier than it’s ever been. He can’t move his leg. And Sam is above him with blood dripping from his teeth.

Still though. He’s a father to his core, and there’s nothing more central to that than reassuring the panicked pair of blue eyes underneath him that everything is going to be okay. Sam can’t move with the way the shrapnel has torn through him, so he offers the only other thing he can.


He smiles.  



══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════


The sound that wakes him isn’t one of his many alarms, it’s his ringtone. Blearily, he reaches for the loud noise on the nightstand next to the bed, the screen light blinding at this early hour. God, it really is early, he thinks as he picks up the phone. His voice is groggy and still shaking off what sleep still clung to his words when he does.


“Hello?”

“Lazarus?”

That’s Sam, his bleary brain supplies for him. It’s Sam and there’s something… off about his voice. “Samael? Is there, is something wrong?”

The voice that answers is ragged, hoarse in a strange way. Doesn’t even sound as though the man is in his apartment, it sounds too… open. “Oh, no. I’m… I’m sorry. God, it's early, I’m sorry.”

“No, no.” He folds himself up out of bed and reaches absently for the glasses that had been next to the phone. “It’s not too early, tell me why you’re calling.” There’s the brief sound of a car passing by on the other end, is the man outside? “Sam, are you outside?”

There’s a brief pause before Sam quietly mumbles. “I didn’t want to wake Qamar.”

And it's then that Lazarus understands. He’s done the same, albeit without the necessity of not waking a family member. Fresh air has always helped ground him. “Where are you at?”

“Just outside the apartment, I didn’t want to go far. Thought about going to the garage just to get an early start but you know.” He can’t see the man, but he can just about hear the tired shrug.

“I know.” Lazarus considers the time, the bodegas between here and Sam’s apartment that he knows are open, looks down at his old sweatpants and t-shirt. “Stay there. I’ll be over in ten.”

And he is. He pulls up to the curb outside Sam’s apartment to find the man sitting slumped on the short set of steps that lead up to the door. His hair is tied up haphazardly, fingers tight in the worn flannel of his sweatpants. The t-shirt that he wears bears the name of his children’s high school even if the early early morning is a bit too chilly for short sleeves to be comfortable. He’d only had time to throw the nearest cardigan on over what he had woken up in, but still. It’s something.

“Sam.” The man’s eyes flick towards him. He looks… tired. Just agonizingly tired, the kind that seeps unwanted to the bones after too many nights spent staring vacantly at the stucco ceiling of his own bedroom. “I brought coffee.”

It’s decaf. It’s warm. Sam takes the offered cup with a hand less steady than Laz is used to and wraps his fingers around it. When he motions to his side, Lazarus settles against the cold brick with his own paper cup. The space between them is a polite chasm, but the silence that settles is far more comfortable. Side by side, they watch as the sun rises hazily over the New York skyline. Lazarus sips his coffee and watches as Sam’s hands steady out over the hours.


Sam eventually breaks the quiet. “Do you want breakfast? Qamar should be up soon.”

“You sure? I don’t want to impose.”

“No, come on. Payment for the coffee.” Sam rises with the achy creak of bones left still for too long. “It’s just shakshuka, it’s the least I could do.”


Qamar eyes them strangely when they both come back in, but the look that Laz catches from him when Sam is turned against the stove is more grateful than suspicious. Hands wrapped around a fresh mug of hot coffee made the way Sam preferred to, he can only think to nod back. Qamar settles into the kitchen chair, seemingly satisfied, before pulling out his phone and typing furiously.


‘Teenagers,’ Laz thinks.


══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════


There’s not much that he remembers in the days following. Sometimes he catches snippets of movement, little bits of conversation around him, but the drugs that they have pumped into his system must be good for all that his head feels like it’s drowning in quicksand. There are moments he tries to move but even that task feels herculean in its immensity.

Some time later, a doctor comes in to inform him of his condition. All of it, medical names and nonsense that hadn’t stuck in his brain, but the gist of it was that his right leg had been shredded. It had been a mess of shrapnel, blood, and torn flesh when the medics had gotten to it and for as gruesome as it sounded, they assured him it could have been much much worse had the translator they had found above him not pulled him away when he had.

“Sam.” his tongue hadn’t worked right. It sat heavy in his mouth, an impossible weight to lift. He needed to know if the man was alright, if he had made it as well. If his leg had looked as bad as it did, what could have possibly happened to Sam? Sam had, god he had a family to look after. Lazarus was nothing, he had no one to care for or care for him save himself. Why was he, why was he the one here hopped up on enough drugs for thoughts to slosh like a viscous slurry against his skull instead of Sam? He had Anisah, he had his kids waiting for him at a home that he looked forward to returning to. “Sam, Where…?”

The doctors didn’t respond, too preoccupied with discussing his charts than trying to puzzle out what he was trying to say.  He wouldn’t get an answer for years.


══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════


It was all too common now for Sam to invite him over now past drinks or dinner when the house was empty. Never needed to explain it to Lazarus, he had merely shown up with takeout when asked; Sam had always trusted his vast expertise in such matters. They would settle into the old couch in the apartment living room to watch whatever happened to be on and soak in the sensation of having another person nearby who understood the need for it.

“I’m going to make tea, do you want anything?” Lazarus sets the food down on the coffee table in front of Sam. The man is sitting there with his hair tied back, sweatshirt proudly sporting the logo of one of the colleges his children attended. Laz thinks it’s Qadira’s, if he remembers right.


“Forks, I think. Did they pack any?”

“I’ll grab them. No tea?”

“Only if you’re already making it.”

“I’ll be making it.”


“Well then, I’ll take some.” Sam shoots him a grin over the back of the couch. Laz’s answering snort follows him through the archway into the kitchen. Really, some days. ‘He was happy the man was happy though,’ he thinks with a little smile as graceful hands pull down two mugs from the cabinet he knows they’re in. Little clinks and clanks cover the sound of bare footsteps crossing the space as he settles into the easy habit of making tea. The body that stops next to his is far more noticeable.


“Oh?” His eyes don’t break from the mugs in front of him. “Did you need something?”


“Yes, actually. I, ah, well. My children, they say...” the tone of his answer is a shaky sort of resolve and curiosity has Lazarus turning towards him. Green eyes meet blue. The word that Sam mutters low under his breath is one that Lazarus doesn’t recognize, but there’s not enough time to think what it might be before Sam leans in and presses his mouth to Laz’s.

The kiss steals the breath from his lungs. He’s never taken Sam for a selfish man and yet here he is, crowding him between two rough hands and taking every ounce of molten want he has trapped in his chest. Lips Lazarus had seen worried between teeth are now slotted against his and god, it’s good. It’s more than good, he thinks as his own hands grip Sam's shirt as some sort of anchor to ground him in the tidal wave of shaky emotion pouring from the man. A singular thought swims to the forefront of his brain even as Sam’s hands snake underneath his own shirt to startle a gasp that the man swallows in another kiss; ‘I don’t deserve this’.

‘I can’t have this,’ he thinks again when Sam dips to press heated open mouthed kisses down the length of his neck. There is nothing he could have done in any previous life to have accrued enough karma to earn the soft groaning sigh that drags slow from Sam’s throat when his hands sneak behind to tangle in those the small curls at the base of his neck that he had kept locked in his memory for years. Twenty years and he finally knows what they feel like between his fingers. If he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the cool metal of dogtags between them and god, he can’t, he can’t… Guilt snakes cloyingly up his throat and squeezes tight at the sides.

“Samael, are you certain about, ah, this?” He manages between breaths. He can’t be, he can’t really want him. He’s a poor substitute for what the man must be starving for: domesticity, a reliable partner, someone to help with his children. Lazarus cannot wrap his mind around how he’s an ideal choice for any of those roles. Blue eyes watch as Sam pulls away from his pale skin to search him for whatever he’s looking for.

He knows he’s weak; his hands stay gripping the back of Sam’s neck in the same way that Sam’s palms press a fevered outline of themselves up the sides of Laz’s ribs. It feels strange the way everything beyond them remains the same despite the precipice he’s got one foot pressed up against: Sam’s bare feet scuff quietly against the old linoleum of his kitchen, the overhead light shines the same way it has every evening he’s been over and making a mug of something for the both of them, the cabinets are still scuffed with age and wear. And yet. And yet, and yet, and yet plays over in his mind like a record stuck. There’s that feeling in his chest again, that heady mix of guilt and overwhelming suffocating want. He wants Sam with an intensity that reaches into his chest and strangles the breath from him.


Sam leans forward to lean his head against Lazarus’s. Thoughts skid to a shuddering halt.


“Don’t.” Sam whispers, begs, against the soft scruff of his cheek. “Don’t take this from me. Please, you’re the first good thing I've, that I’ve felt in a long while.” When Lazarus is quiet for a moment too long, he continues. “I’m sorry, I can stop. I… I don’t want you to feel pressured, or, or -”


It’s like falling. It’s that sinking, sucking feeling in his gut when he takes one step more off the cliff that had been crawling closer for years. Lazarus swallows the rest of Sam’s words with a desperate kiss as he closes the lingering gap between them. The sigh that tears from Sam is a little wet, a little broken, but there's a fierce relief in the way he kisses back. The tea they had been making is forgotten when Sam crowds him against the counter of the kitchen.

“Couch, couch at least, god. I’m not terribly… terribly young anymore.” his breath hitches with the way Sam moves against him, how he kisses the line of his jaw while Lazarus speaks, how his hands smooth down the sides of him only to eventually hook beneath his thighs and pull him up to bracket his legs above the cut of Sam’s own hips. “Fuck, Sam -”


The low answering hum shakes through his chest with as close as he is. “That’s the idea.”


It might not be a good idea in the morning, Lazarus thinks as Sam moves them both to his large, well worn couch. They might both regret it later but now? Now as he pulls the man’s shirt from him with hands still shaking from some emotion he doesn’t have the headspace to name, this feels right enough. A pale hand traces almost reverently up the man’s bare chest, thicker than when he was younger and heavily scarred from the same accident that had torn open his leg. He’s been so lonely, so achingly lonely, so absolutely starved for some kind of intimate touch that the warm dark expanse he’s been so thoughtfully gifted seems overwhelming. This feels reckless, this feels... Feels…

“What, what do you want?” he asks the man above him. The braids he had put in earlier are starting to come undone, he thinks absently as a free hand reaches to curl one gently around a pale finger and tuck it gently back behind an ear. Eyes above him go briefly distant at the motion. It looks as though the man has forgotten how to breath for a moment, the air sucked from him by a silent thief. Memories, he can see flickers of them in the glassy green of Sam’s eyes. It takes the man from him briefly.

“I want, god, I want,” he sounds frustrated. For one sinking moment, Lazarus thinks it’s with him, but Sam makes no move to move from between his legs. “I want you. But…” A strangled noise escapes him, halfway between a choked sob and a growl.

“Hey.” Lazarus is gentle this time with the hand at the back of the man’s neck. The slightest pressure pulling towards him, and Sam curls against his chest as something kept far too tight finally breaks fully. Sam’s hands curl around him and grab hard at anything he can reach as years and years of holding himself together finally cracks apart. Lazarus holds him as the television in front of them quietly rolls through an ad break.

“I want you, I love you.” he manages eventually. “I love her. I can’t… I don’t…”

A pale hand cradles his face as he forces Sam to look at him. There’s a tear streaking wet down Sam’s dark cheeks; he wipes it away with a gentle swipe of thumb. “We don’t have to do anything tonight.”

“I’m trying.” Sam looks as though he’s trying to convince the world of his honesty. “I’ve tried so hard, Lazarus. She was… she was my everything for so long. And now there’s you and god, I’ve fucked this up.”

“There will be other nights, Sam. I can stop.” the words come back to him. He’s already been given a script. “I don’t want you to feel pressured. I’ll be here.”

“Stay? I don’t think I’ll… Qamar’s not home and I don’t want to…”

“Of course.” Trying his luck, he leans up to press soft lips against Sam’s. It’s a heady sort of relief when he feels some of the tension leave the man as he presses back. “Of course. Have to do a bit of rearranging, though.”

That gets him to laugh. It’s a pitiable thing, still wet with tears and sucked dry by exhaustion, but it's a laugh. The man pulls him from under him, rearranges them both so that Laz is tucked comfortably against his front still on the couch. Neither of them have the energy to try and move anywhere more comfortable, but it’s enough for tonight. As Sam tucks them both in with a blanket pulled from the back of the couch, he presses one last exhausted kiss to the back of Lazarus’s bare neck.


“I’m sorry.” comes the murmur from behind him.


“Don’t be.” Lazarus answers. For all that it feels reckless, feels like he doesn’t deserve this, feels like this is a broken mess already, he feels… he feels at peace with the shards. With the realization comes something settling comfortably in his chest. He knew going in that Sam was a loyal man, one who loved with an intensity and depth that he could drown in. That he was a chance that the man was taking with a heart taped over and still bleeding soundlessly into a space once occupied by a woman a million times better than himself. He couldn’t fill that space, knew it at his core, but now? Now as Sam’s fingers spread and reach for his own to grab and slot together, he hoped against hope that there was a space left to fit the shattered mess of himself.


“Don’t be.” he repeats again a little quieter. The hand in his squeezes in answer.


══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════


He had come home after being released to a cascade of noise and attention. Spotlights shone unwelcome on him as he was paraded like some show horse for publicity. ‘Look at our award winning reporter, injured in the field for his dedication to the story and the truth!’ each new headline seemed to say. Of course, they trussed them up a little, decorated them in enough bits and bauble so they were all different, but the sentiment was there. He was the hero. He was to be lauded.


He drank alone at night in the suffocating quiet of his apartment.


Bottle after bottle of expensive wines he had been saving, then to less expensive bottles he picked up on the way home that mixed poorly with the painkillers he had been prescribed. Or well, depending on the metric. Whatever it was, it was enough to kill any leftover feelings still clinging to the space between his ribs like a well aimed blade. ‘Sam had been…’ he thinks as he just about trips over the coffee table and onto the couch. ‘He deserved it more. He deserved all of this. The hero bit, the awards, the accolades. Sam had saved him and for what?’


“For what?” He mumbles to the empty space around him. “What the fuck do I have that’s worth saving?”


══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════


In the end, very little changes between them. The both of them had already been hurtling towards this inevitable conclusion that it seems… natural adding this new facet to their relationship. They would keep grabbing dinner, still keep each other company during nights where Sam’s children left the house empty, just now more often than not curled into the other. When the news reached Sam’s children, they had each sent their approval with the exception of  Qamar.

Qamar had cornered him one night while Sam was busy showering after work, sized him up with those familiar green eyes before speaking. “I was… worried about him.” he starts. “I didn’t want to move out and leave him alone, you know?”

Lazarus does know. He nods.

“So thanks. One more year and I would’ve just told the both of you though.”

“You knew?” his eyebrows nearly hit his hairline as Qamar snorts.

“Of course I did. Come on, I’m close to it, but I’m not blind.”

Sam comes out then, slipping a large sweater over hair still damp from the shower. “Go on, stop bothering him. You’ll be late for your class.”

“You just want me out of the house.” Qamar grabs his backpack stuffed with business textbooks from the local community college and huffs.

“And what if I do?” Sam smiles as he dips to catch Lazarus in a kiss. The blush that fades soft across his cheeks is unexpected, he thought he would’ve been past that at fifty.

Gagging noises follow Qamar out the door. “Gross, bye.”

Sam laughs, the sound closer to what Lazarus remembers. The door clicks shut behind Qamar, Lazarus turns, and the rest of the evening is lost to warm bowls of takeout and something ignored on the television.


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His days carry so much monotony now. Painkillers he’s slowly weaned off of, alcohol thrown out after too many mornings where he had been late from hangovers that left him struggling to even breathe, but by the time they’re both gone, they’ve done their job. He’s numb and settled into this feeling like he’s living on stolen time. With nothing else to do, he throws himself into his work. Award after award finds its way to his desk but they’re only shiny baubles, things to decorate with rather than anything of meaning. Slowly though, he finds a bite. In the middle of a story other journalists had passed between each other before it landed on his desk, he realizes that there’s something there, something that pours gasoline over the simmering emotion he’s tamped down on for the past years. He’s reminded of Sam, the father of several young children struggling to help a force that had left him after he had given everything for them. For him.


The expose that follows earns him a Pulitzer.


His interviews feel like violent encounters now; find a weakness in an argument to exploit, drag a stuttering politician into a metaphorical town square by their hair and raise him in front of the crowd to scream his wrongdoings. It’s wrong, it's all wrong what they’ve done to him, to Sam.

He tastes blood. He wants their heads. They learn to fear him.

More and more, he’s found in the office rather than his apartment. Everything else in his life past what he needs to do to present the image of a formidable journalist is left to neglect. He’s hired a cleaning service for his apartment that comes in once a week, lives on takeout that he picks up late most nights, and hardly sleeps more than is entirely necessary. Therefore, it’s not entirely surprising when after a long day without his migraine medicine, one of his tires gets a flat.


‘Really,’ he thinks as he pulls to the side of the road, more annoyed than anything else.


It’s raining.


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It’s so easy to love Sam. Loving Sam is like breathing, something reflexive that he does and will do until death eventually takes him. Loving Sam is like finally coming home to somewhere warmer than the cold empty wealth of his own apartment, it’s not dreading each night spent by himself. It’s knowing exactly how the man takes his coffee, knowing the smile he makes when he thinks Lazarus isn’t looking, it's the shuffling of bare feet on kitchen tiles as the man pulls him through something slow on the radio with hands calloused and strong. It’s the arms that pull him into a warm body when he wakes shaking from a nightmare, it’s his own pale thumbs brushing quiet tears from the man’s cheeks in the early, early hours of the morning when everything was a bit too much.

They’re packing Sam’s kitchen now. In a week, they’ll be moving to some sleepy city a little further down the coast to settle into semi retirement. They had been looking into apartments and found one to both their likings above some empty storefront that hadn't been rented out since the last owner left to try their luck in a larger city. A cafe, the realtor had told them.

“Are you going to open another garage?” He hums the question from where he’s wrapping glasses in newspaper on the counter where Sam had first kissed him. Noonday sunlight streams through the small window set above the sink to cast a warm glow across the old, faded linoleum floor. To be honest, he can’t see the man being content without something to do, even in retirement. Suppose he’s the same.

“I don’t think so.” Sam responds from where he’s packing old mixing bowls and baking supplies from the bottom cabinets away on the floor. That surprises him.

“No?”

“No.” When Lazarus looks down at him, he’s holding a baking tin in his hands and looking at it with a thoughtful look in his eyes. “I think I’d like to try something different.”

Sam turns to him, and his smile is soft. Comfortable. Like something he’s doing without even realizing he’s doing it. It fills him with something like the sun that hits the floor through the window and Lazarus can’t help it, he smiles back.

“Mmm. I was thinking of taking the building downstairs. Anisah had always wanted a bakery.”

“A bakery then. Far cry from a garage.” Laz laughs.

The pan is set carefully in the box before Sam stands and curls a hand around Lazarus’s waist. “It’s close enough. I’ll figure it out.”

“I know you will.”

He leans in to kiss the man. Their lips meet in something slow and sweet, easy like the morning they’ve settled in. Sam is the one that breaks first, parting his lips to deepen the kiss into something that drags both their attentions away from packing and towards each other. The hand that sits on Lazarus’s thin hip is less of a brand and more of heavy, reassuring weight. Sam doesn’t flinch when pale fingers reach up to tangle in his newly braided curls and tuck flyaways back behind his ears; rather, the rumble that shakes and echoes between them is very far from upset.


Sam loves him. He loves Sam.


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The story begins with a bakery.
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