[Zéro – Epilogue.]
/
Today was a big day.
Freedom Day… and his and Henry's anniversary. They both meant so much to Sammy. How had a year already flown by?
It probably helped to have such a wonderful man at his side. Thirty years ago, the musician wouldn't have dreamed of the life he had now.
Right person, wrong time.
But first? Coffee. He hadn't touched cigarettes in the year above ground but coffee would never not be missed… and Henry introducing him to the French press was a delight in and of itself! Such a change from the Moka pot.
Henry was always up first, usually with breakfast ready. Neither of them really did much for the first meal of the day, but there were times Henry went all-out. Cinnamon rolls were the delicious handiwork of the non-inky devil, and apparently he'd given Henry his personal recipe.
But this morning? No sizzle of eggs or scent of toast. Just a perfectly plain, white box sitting on the countertop.
"Morning." Henry muttered before taking a sip of coffee. "Press is on the table."
"Fantastic…" but he eyed the box carefully. New object, and Henry was playing mum. Okay then. He took his mug off the drying rack and went to fill it. The box loomed still, perfectly square. "So then, whatever is in that box."
The cartoonist peered over his glasses. "You tell me."
"You… don't know what's inside?"
"I do. I picked it up while you were sleeping. Place was open at six, got it by half past."
That told the blond nothing. "You didn't."
"I did."
Sammy squinted at the box. "It better not be what I think it is."
Henry smirked. "What could it be?"
But the blond frowned at the innocent, white box and gave the top a pat before drawing back. When nothing happened, his scrutiny grew.
"Sammy, it's not gonna bite you."
"It might."
"Trust me, it won't."
Blue eyes narrowed, and Sammy Lawrence braced himself for what lay inside. The lid lifted and- "Oh thank god."
Henry laughed and set down his mug. "What?"
The blond scowled before cracking a smile himself.
"Sammy, what'd you think I was giving you?"
"I thought it was a kitten. Honestly worried you got a kitten."
Henry grabbed the counter and let out a belly laugh. "D-do you like the cake?"
"Do I like the- yes!" He set the box down and grinned. "Calm down, little sheep."
"You thought I got you a kitten?"
"Be glad I didn't shake the box!" But he picked the pastry up and pushed up on the bottom, revealing a perfectly normal Brooklyn Blackout cake. Tilting his hand carefully he slid the six-inch round onto the flat top and smirked. "Is this breakfast?"
Henry had calmed considerably, blush seeping away from his cheeks. "Yep. When we hit that diner after we got out, I figured why not make it a tradition?"
"We hit the diner a week after the fact… but who am I to say no to chocolate cake." Sammy set the flattened box aside and pulled open a drawer. He rummaged around the silverware drawer, pulling out forks and a serving knife with glee. "Grab the plates."
Henry turned and grinned. "You're gonna share?"
"Just this once." His voice dropped to a threatening growl. "Tell no-one."
"Deal."
\
Breakfast flew by, sweet as life could be. But anniversaries didn't stop work.
The musician had a good run of luck for up and coming companies, and this newest jingle was going to be a bouncy ear-worm indeed… if he could get it pinned down. Sammy spent most of his day at the piano, tinkering around with a jingle for some soap commercial he'd been contracted for. Simple, silly work, but it paid well enough. He didn't expect awards for songs about soap, not like he'd supposedly won for his work with Sillyvision.
He didn't need accolades to know his talent or worth.
But this silly little tune just… didn't want to come to him. Not on the piano, at least. He left the piano in the den alone, and he headed to the attic. He wouldn't be going for what he had in mind if he hadn't been close to a deadline.
It wasn't some barren place with spiders and ghosts, just a good place for storing things that only saw use now and again. He'd helped Henry clean it up and organize it, a task that took a weekend and a lot of pushing and shoving. The yard sale was a blast, though. The only reason they hadn't turned the attic into a personal studio was the fact the piano was too… much. For Sammy's thin limbs and Henry's bad back.
But it meant Sammy couldn't hide away in some dark corner of the house. Even if his interactions were limited to work and Henry, at least he interacted.
The blond headed for the funny thing on a hook by a window. The window that had been left half-open at some point in the past. Not a bad thing, the breeze was calm and the weather in Pasadena was bearable all year round. But the hook, not more than a jutting nail, held his banjo.
The banjo. The one he'd had… down there. A reminder too deep to throw away and too familiar to really, deeply hate.
Thin hands grasped the neck and pot, fixing the strap over his neck. It felt the same as it had in the studio… but it wasn't the studio. It was an attic in Pasadena, California, with the studio's skeleton far away on the opposite side of the country. Old bones and police tape. It was nothing...
Sammy shut his eyes. Worried his lip. Drummed his fingers in a waltz. Where was he? What could he hear? What could he-
Lawnmower down the street, droning on and on. A truck trundling along a block down. Birds having a fit in the oak sitting in the backyard. The screen door of the sun porch swinging open and shut- there was Henry, then. Done from taking care of the garden. They'd planted daffodils in the spring…
Sammy Lawrence was not in the studio. He never had been in the studio. It had been a year. Therapy check-ins with the feds therapist -nice lady, didn't smile much- every other month helped he and Henry remember where they really were and how to get back to here when their minds went there.
The blond took a deep breath, and plucked the first string. Perfect G, good. Second, perfect B. Then a G, a B, and… a D flat.
"Hm. Not unexpected." Feeling over the neck to the tuner peg, and tried it again.
There it went. Perfect D.
His hands never forgot the memory of the thin neck and tight pot, frets under fingertips and the strap hugging his neck and shoulder. He started slow, knowing the key he wanted and where he wanted to go… then he let himself play. The banjo felt like an odd memory in his grasp, but the notes held older thoughts, better ones, ones of ideas among drudgery, of calming others in the dark, of leading people to freedom-
He stopped, fingers crooked and ready. But he had the idea he needed! That was enough. "Fantastic." He made to take the instrument from off his neck, and paused at the sound of clapping.
From the yard below, coming up from under the sun porch, Henry applauded him.
The blond chuckled and put the banjo back on its hook. He didn't need accolades to know his talent or worth. But Henry clapping for him never hurt.
Sammy clicked off the lights and shut the attic behind him. He'd go back to the banjo eventually, bring it back to him and keep it close at hand when the urge to play struck… but it was better on the hook. It couldn't make him overthink if it sat up there in a room on a hook far from his piano and mind.
Maybe later. Maybe never. Who knew? Not him.
All he knew was the jingle would be done by sundown and lunch was likely left to himself.
/
Henry could not for the life of him figure out chopsticks. He'd have his egg foo young with a fork and his crab wantons with his fingers… and Sammy would scrutinize the hell of of his own food with the little, bamboo sticks and a sly remark here and there.
Chinese food was hard to beat, even if it took some convincing to get Sammy to try it at first. He wasn't so much a picky eater as he was… wary.
Of the things Sammy seemed to struggle with, it wasn't the changes in things such as phones and cars, but people. People different from himself. It wasn't total malice, but fear, misunderstanding, his own projections of his own issues.
But the blond was willing to work on the problems he had to outgrow to better maneuver the changed world. Henry found food was a great motivator for the blond!
If he'd actually eat it. Chinese food was relatively a safe bet, even if Sammy stuck to one thing each time.
Henry didn't ask why Sammy preferred sitting on the floor. There was plenty of room on the couch.
"Chicken-fried rice never fails."
"You could try pork-fried if you're feeling up for it?"
The blond stuck out his tongue. "I'm not going near pork."
"Mm, same."
"Same?" He grinned, poking at an egg roll with a stick. "You had a BLT when we got out."
"And?"
A chuckle. "On a diet of bacon soup, you'd think bacon would lose it's luster."
"I'm not even sure that the bacon in the soup was actual bacon!"
"Could have been chopped up interns for all I know." He bit the egg roll with a satisfying crunch.
Henry perked. "By the way, Buddy sent us a letter."
"Did he?"
"It's on the table. He sent a photo with him and Norman." His smile grew soft. "They both look great."
Sammy blinked. "We should send something back."
"Our own letter and photo, you think?"
"I don't see why not." He chomped down the other half of the egg roll. "Have you-" He paused at his faux-pa and swallowed. "Have you had any luck with getting your Sunday strip back in circulation?"
"Uh… bad news is the old paper isn't interested in renewal."
"Their loss, my little sheep."
Henry peered over his glasses and quirked a brow. "But there's a larger paper that's interested. I have a meeting on Friday. They want a color strip for the test run. It's what I've been working on."
The blond blinked. "That's wonderful news. Why not tell me sooner?"
Henry shrugged and flipped over a patty of egg. "You were in the attic. Didn't wanna interrupt the artistic flow."
The blond from his spot on the floor reached up for Henry and wrapped thin fingers around his arm. "Never feel badly for interrupting me. You're worth the pause."
Henry felt his face warm. "I'll try to remember."
Sammy withdrew and went back to his dinner. "I'll keep reminding you. You deserve my attention."
"Jeez." Taking a bite of the egg patty and rolling over how to put the question in his mind, Henry asked "Have you thought of writing back to Susie yet?"
"Mm. No." Her letter, five pages filled with announcements and apologies packed into neat cursive, lay on the top of his piano a month after the fact. "Nothing to say."
"I get it."
"...maybe by Christmas I'll have something nice to say."
Henry smirked. "No rush."
"Not for her, at least." But he did know he'd have to say something eventually. But not now. Not today. Maybe never, but probably sooner than Christmas. "Did they give us fortune cookies this time?"
"They gave us extra."
"Fantastic."
\
Henry flipped through his collection of records, smirking at the man now sprawling on the couch. "You overdid it on the cake."
"Half gone by lunch, the rest called out to me in a Chinese-food fueled stupor." The blond rolled so his feet hit the floor. "But I did save you a piece."
"That you did," the cartoonist said, pausing at the record held under the pad of his finger. "Say, Sammy. How would you feel about a dance?"
"Nothing strenuous, little sheep."
"I've got something here you might enjoy."
Sammy stood and stretched, knuckles almost brushing the ceiling. "Put it on. I'm up for at least a waltz." It wasn't even nine at night! When had he gotten old enough to think that nine at night was late?
Henry pulled the record free and placed it on the turntable. Needle down, the soft, bright piano fell like rose petals from the speakers. He held out his hand. "Uh… can you lead?"
A snort. "He asks me to dance and to lead?" But his grin was soft and had no bite or blade. "How can I say no?"
The sound of a delighted trumpet floated in as strings and soft percussion joined to take over the tune.
Hands joined, Sammy took the two of them to spin with all the grace two men closing in on their sixties could give… which was enough.
"Don't try to dip me, okay?"
"I didn't plan to. I might drop you."
Henry laughed and let himself be spun. "Fair enough."
Sammy's brows lifted at the tune when he finally caught it. "Oh. Louis Armstrong. Excellent choice."
Henry's smile grew. "You said you didn't like brass, but it's Louis Armstrong."
Sammy squinted. "Who doesn't like Louis Armstrong?"
Hold me close and hold me fast
This magic spell you cast
This is la vie en rose
Sammy's laugh was more a hissing noise as he touched their foreheads together. "Today was wonderful."
Henry shut his eyes. "Glad you think so."
"Do you think so?"
"I do." He pulled back from him and leaned his head back to give the slender man a kiss.
Sammy's grip shifted from leading a waltz in the living room to holding his love still and silently asking for more.
The record played on, the trumpet closing out with a joy few things could claim to do better.
/
Nothing beat the afterglow.
Not the warm, low notes of a cello or the setting sun against a rolling tide after a day at the beach. Nothing beat laying against Henry after sex. The rhythm of his pulse as it slowed, how stark the contrast of his skin and body hair were to the other, the low, soft sounds he made the further they went.
Henry was sensory heaven.
Sammy leaned back against Henry's chest, boneless and content. He could feel the mans heartbeat against his back, and it lulled him even further. "Wonder what we'll do next year?"
Henry shrugged, arms around Sammy's middle. "I heard that Bertrum was working on a personal project out on the coast. He might like a visit."
"Mm. So long as we do something for it. A day that needs commemorating."
Henry smiled fondly. "I guess we could figure something out." Henry blinked, his smile growing. "Did you have something in mind?"
"Well… you did promise me a trip to Coney Island."
"It's worth the trip. Trust me… and you're right, I did promise to take you."
The thin man turned and kissed Henry's temple. "Maybe get a private room on the train ride there?"
"You'll have to win me something at a game booth."
"Only if you get me a funnel cake."
"Deal. We'll plan it out tomorrow."
"So soon?" How did he get so lucky? "That sounds fantastic."
"Hell, why wait until next year? We can go in the off season. Cooler weather, less people?"
Sammy nestled his cheek against Henry's shoulder. "Even better."
The cartoonist pulled the musician in tighter and closed his eyes. "Goodnight, Sammy."
The musician lay a thin hand over the cartoonist's heart. "Goodnight, my little sheep."
"...Sammy?"
"Mm?"
"I love you."
A chuckle, soft as the summer breeze. "I love you, too. Now, goodnight."
"Goodnight."
And it was a good night. And there would be so many more to come.
/
Fin