Chapter 26

Sawyer awoke before Bashir the next morning. He wasn't surprised—it had taken way too long for Bashir to find a position comfortable enough for him to sleep in, and even then every little shift had woken him up until he could take another round of the really good painkillers. Those had been enough to knock him out, and he looked almost like his usual self as he lay there with his head turned toward Sawyer, arms carefully down at his sides, back propped up with a few extra pillows. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and Sawyer smiled to see it.

Bashir was hurt and he wasn't going to be healed for a long time, but he was alive. That was the important thing. He was alive, and he was going to get better. They both were, as miraculous as that seemed. Sawyer hadn't been taking their mutual survival for granted anymore by the time Boyce found them.

Stop staring and let the man sleep in peace.

Sawyer's body tugged at him to just shut his eyes and lay back down, but his brain was too busy to let it happen now. Instead he got up, easing out of their gigantic, super comfortable bed so that he didn't jostle his broken arm or sleeping boyfriend, and headed for the oversized zip-up hoodie on the coat rack. That plus pajama pants and his shoes would be enough to get him downstairs to the hotel's in-house café for some coffee. He wrote out a quick note for Bashir, left it in plain sight on the bedside table, grabbed his wallet and phone, and headed downstairs.

There weren't many people moving around in the lobby, but the few who were there invariably stared at him as he exited the elevator. Sawyer resisted the urge to snap at them to "mind their own damn business" and kept going straight for the café. They could stare all they wanted; he knew he looked like shit. There was no helping it after the week he'd had.

"Hi there!" the bubbly young man behind the counter in the café said as Sawyer walked up. "What can I get for you today?"

"A large coffee, black. And a caramel latte with whole milk to go," he added; he could always reheat it for Bashir when he woke up.

"Sure! Anything to eat? We have all sorts of pastries and breakfast sandwiches."

Sawyer hesitated, then said, "Okay" and picked out a couple of pastries to bag up and take back to the room as well. Bashir was sure to want another painkiller when he woke up, and they went down easiest when you'd had some food. Sawyer would know.

He paid, thanked the chirpy barista, and gathered his purchases awkwardly into one arm before heading for the café door.

Then his phone went off.

"Shit," Sawyer muttered. Hands, hands, he needed extra hands… He deposited everything on the first table he could get to and grabbed his phone. "Hello?"

"Oh my God, Sawyer!"

He winced. "Jesus, Jessica, can you be a little quieter?"

"Quiet? Quiet? When I've just found out that my brother was almost murdered by a serial killer, again ? And you want me to be quiet about it?"

Oh, for fuck's— "How did you find out about that?"

"Oh please," his sister scoffed. "Between getting transcripts from the police scanner and listening to the morning shock-jocks in your area going off on all the ‘nobody left to handle the dead bodies!' at the morgue jokes, it's not hard to put it all together. You and the M.E. were attacked by the other coroner or whatever, the same one responsible for the other mysterious murders that have been happening there lately."

Holy crap. "Why are you getting transcripts of all this information?"

"Well, it's not like you were going to tell me anything, is it?" His sister paused, then sighed. "Look, it was unfair of me to ask you to break the law for the sake of my pitch, I understand that now. My contact in the area—"

"Felix Daughtry, I take it—"

"My contact told me not to push it anymore, and so I stopped, but that doesn't mean I stopped altogether! I couldn't! I have a meeting with executives at two different studios today based on the work I've already done, so it's really convenient that you and Dr. Ramin wrapped things up yesterday."

Sawyer's mouth compressed into a flat, straight line. "Well. How nice for you that my boyfriend and I surviving almost being murdered by a psychopath provided you with a convenient ending to your story. "

"Oh, don't be upset," Jessica said. "It's not personal, Sawyer, you know that. It's just…just business, honey. That's how it is out here."

"I know." He knew it all too well. That was the whole reason he didn't want to play the game anymore. "So, now that you know I'm alive and you've got your happy ending worked out, you better put the finishing touches on your pitch."

He could practically hear his sister pout over the phone. "Aren't you going to wish me luck? This is your niece's career on the line, after all."

The silence stretched out before Sawyer finally said, "Break a leg."

" Thank you!" Jessica chimed, and then ended the call.

Oof. Now his headache was worse than ever. Sawyer paused to take a long drink of his coffee. He put it down, then picked it back up, drained it, and brought it back to the counter. "Can I get a refill?" he asked.

"Sure," the barista said, his eyes very wide as he took the cup. "Um. Did you really just survive being murdered by a psychopath?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

The young man nodded. He went over to the coffee machine, filled the cup up to the brim, then snapped the lid onto it and brought it back. "On the house," he said when Sawyer got out his wallet to pay. "Congratulations on being alive, sir."

A little of Sawyer's frustration eased. "Thanks."

He made it back upstairs without his phone going off and eased into their room, setting the coffee and pastries down on the table in the kitchenette. He'd planned to go out on the balcony so he didn't wake Bashir up, but in the end, he just sat down on the suite's couch, cup warming his good hand, and stared at the bed.

You almost didn't get to have this. This was almost impossible.

Imagine what could have happened. Imagine how badly it could have gone.

Nightmare scenarios tore little chunks out of Sawyer's composure, taunting him with what-ifs.

What if Boyce had taken them out in Bashir's house? What if Bashir had had to watch Sawyer die, messy but fast with a shot to the head or slow and awful with one to the gut? What if they'd suffocated on carbon monoxide together? Shit, what if Sawyer hadn't survived the car accident he'd thrown himself into? Bashir would have been fucked up , he knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt now. And Boyce would have had the leisure to pick his time to finish off the man whose abilities he hated so much.

Sawyer's hand shook as he raised his coffee to his lips and sipped. Damn, he probably didn't need this caffeine, not how he was feeling in that moment. He was jittery, desperate to go stand over Bashir like some kind of lunatic and watch him breathe and maybe shake him awake so he knew that he was all right, and—

Nope. Not okay. Breathe. Breathe. Calm down and breathe…

It took longer than Sawyer was used to, but he managed to talk himself down off the lover-or-stalker" ledge and stay seated. Bashir needed his sleep. And Sawyer needed…

Well, he needed this. This was enough, it really was. He wanted to be with Bashir, to watch over him and make sure he was okay, and to be watched over in return. He wanted to be with him. Not just for now, though—from here on out. They had gotten together under circumstances that were practically incompatible with romance, but Sawyer wanted to keep it. He just wasn't sure how.

After a second, he grabbed his phone again and tapped out a message to someone he actually wanted to talk to. After making sure Molly was updated on the case—she was, thanks to Nan—and knew he was all right, Sawyer wrote, How did you stay together for so long? What made it work? God knew that his parents were only still married for tax reasons—they hadn't even lived in the same house for the past decade—and his sister's marriage had dissolved before the two-year mark.

We worked at it, honey. Some days it was hard work. Very, very hard. Molly added a gif of a weightlifter struggling to lift a chest press bar, and Sawyer smiled. But we loved each other. No matter what else was going on, we loved each other and we listened to each other. That's what made it work. Listening, respect, and love.

The funeral is this Saturday, by the way. I hope you and Dr. Ramin can come but I understand if you can't.

Sawyer sighed. We'll try , he wrote back, and then I love you. Because he did. Molly was the second sweetest person in his life after Bashir.

He looked up from his phone to see the first sweetest person in his life gazing over at him with bleary eyes. "Sawyer?" he asked around a cough, then winced.

"Hey!" Sawyer got up and came over to the bed, carefully helping Bashir into a sitting position. "Easy," he murmured. "We don't want to hurt your ribs."

"That's for damn sure," Bashir muttered, rubbing one hand down his face. He looked—well, he looked awful, honestly. His eyes were puffy, his hair was a mess, one shoulder was hiked higher than the other, probably in an effort to ease the pain in his chest and back, and his breath was…not great. But all Sawyer could think as he stared at Bashir was how much he adored him.

"Let me get your pain pills," he said instead of blurting all that other stuff out like a weirdo. He brought the pills and the coffee over, and once Bashir got them down Sawyer grabbed the pastries as well.

"We should go to the table," Bashir said.

"We're in a hotel," Sawyer replied. "We can get new sheets without having to do it ourselves."

"Still, if we don't need to make a mess for someone else to clean up…"

Sawyer grabbed a towel out of the bathroom, spread it out under the food. "There. Picnic blanket."

Bashir laughed—very carefully, but he laughed. "I guess that works." He squeezed Sawyer's hand. "Thanks for getting food."

"You're welcome." They had a quiet meal with their phones on silent, and Sawyer watched with satisfaction as the lines on Bashir's forehead got lighter as his pills kicked in. A shower—separate showers, damn it, but Bashir was right when he said neither of them was really up for anything other than getting clean—and some clean clothes later and Bashir joined him on the couch with a sigh.

"I'm a little surprised I slept so late."

"You needed it, Sawyer said.

"I know, but…" Bashir shook his head. "I've got so many things going on in my brain right now, I'm surprised it's not coming out my ears."

Sawyer knew the feeling. "What are you thinking about?"

"Mostly? How I don't think I can live in my house again."

Oh…huh. Sawyer hadn't even gotten that far, there had be en so many other awful things to think about, but he could see how it would be uncomfortable for Bashir to move back in after his sanctuary had been so thoroughly violated.

"I bought the house even before I moved here," Bashir went on. "It was the first thing I took care of once I signed the job contract. I loved it from the first time I stepped inside the door, and now all I can think of is that we almost died in my fucking garage."

"That sucks," Sawyer agreed, then added, "I can't imagine my neighbors are going to be thrilled with the fact that I almost got a couple of them poisoned, either."

"That wasn't your fault," Bashir said.

No, it wasn't, but… "So many people died," Sawyer said. "So pointlessly. Just because a psychopath got a bug up his ass."

Bashir hung his head a bit. "I know. Honestly, I wish I hadn't come here. If I hadn't taken the job—"

"No." Sawyer was moving before he registered it himself, turning toward Bashir and tilting his chin up so they were looking into each other's eyes. "If it wasn't you, it would have been whoever else was hired above him. Boyce did this, not you. We wouldn't have figured it out without you." He took a deep breath, then said, "And I wouldn't have fallen in love either, so I'm grateful for you. That you came here, and that you're so amazing."

Thank God he didn't blush easily. It was still hard to look at Bashir in the wake of hurtling his feelings into the space between them like they belonged there, but Sawyer did his best. Love is work. "And it's fine if you're not there yet," he added, "or if you don't—if you want to move on, or leave, I get it. I do."

Bashir reached out and took Sawyer's hand in both of his. "I don't want to leave. Ever." Then he leaned in and kissed Sawyer, and it was the sweetest thing he'd ever felt in his life. No urgency, no fear, no worry about the rest of the world. Just a tender press of their lips together, warm and soft, a reminder that they had each other.

Sawyer prolonged the kiss as long as he could but eventually had to let Bashir go so he could straighten his torso out with a grimace. "Sorry to ruin the moment," he said. "Ribs take forever to heal. I wonder how—"

He stopped before he said it, but Sawyer knew they were thinking the same thing. Boyce's entire ribcage had been turned into kindling. The last he knew, it was touch and go whether the man would live through the night, much less last long enough to be tried and convicted for his crimes.

Bashir glanced toward his phone. "Should we—"

"No." Nan would text if something important came up. Otherwise, she was doing a great job giving them their privacy, and Sawyer wanted to preserve it. "He's in custody, and I honestly don't care whether he lives or dies. Andy Boyce is immaterial to the rest of my life, as far as I'm concerned. You're not." He leaned in and kissed Bashir again quickly. "And you didn't ruin the moment."

"Good." A smile was so much better on his face than the worried frown he'd been sporting a moment ago. "I hope we have more of them."

"Yeah." If Sawyer could get a lifetime of moments like that last one, he'd die happy—hopefully many, many years from now. "Me too."