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The phone rang.
Laid up in bed, Sam shivered with fever and listened helplessly as Max answered it in the kitchen while supposedly tending the soup Sam had begged him to make.
“It’s the Geek!” Shouted Max. “She says there’s a hot case we can take later this afternoon.”
“I think the only thing hot I can handle right now is soup, little buddy. How’s it coming?” Sam could hear bubbling, but he was too weak to get up and pour himself a bowl.
Padding into the room, Max gave him an impromptu check-up, feeling his nose, peering into his ears, and pulling up his lip to inspect his gums. “Oh come on! Why aren’t you better yet? It sounds like a really good one.”
There was a hiss from the next room as the soup started boiling over.
“The soup, Max, the soup!”
Max raced into the kitchen. Grabbing the pot from the stove, he poured the soup into a bowl, slopping most of it over onto the counter. Hurrying into the bedroom, he brought it over and waited impatiently while Sam struggled to sit up.
“Is this gonna be like that time you broke your arm? I don’t want to have to start opening doors and carrying things for you again,” griped Max as he handed Sam the steaming soup.
“YEOWW!!” Jerking the bowl from side to side, Sam managed to spill on his both hands and the bedcover before he was able to lurch over and dump it ungracefully onto the bedside table. The bowl slid over the side and fell with a crash onto the floor.
Max put his hands on his hips. “Tsk. I thought you liked pea soup.”
Sam first shook, then blew on his fingers. “Max, that bowl was piping hot! I’m surprised I didn’t get second degree burns on my fingers.
“Was it? I’m fine - didn’t even notice,” replied Max.
“That’s because you have oven mitts on!” Sam pointed out.
Max looked down. So it was. “Oh yeah,” he admitted. “Saaaam, come on! Why do you have to be sick today?” he demanded. “I just want you to come out and do the case with me.
Sam took a deep breath. He could feel anger rising slowly, but he just didn’t have the energy to be mad. Leaning back onto the headboard, he wiped his soup-covered hands on the ruined bedspread.
“You’re gonna need to change this. And clean up the soupy mess. And no, I can’t go out with you today, Max.”
Max stomped out of the room, returning with an armload of blankets which he tossed at the foot of the bed. He crossed his arms and announced, “Fine! Suit yourself. If you want to sit around and wallow in blankets, go right ahead. I’m going out on a case.”
And with that, Max left in a huff.
Sam leaned back and gathered his strength before getting up to change the bedcover. He left the mess where it was – he would have to deal with that later.
There were some things Max didn’t understand. Heck, the things that Max didn’t understand could just about fill all the books in the world except for one thin volume entitled ‘Junk Food and Violence’.
He never did understand physical needs, like sleeping, or eating well, or petty things like his health. He spent many a night jumping around manically high on sugar, thumbing his nose in the face of sleep. And while Sam had bad eating habits, Max ate like a trash compactor. Bizarrely, Sam had never seen him get sick a day in his life.
Max didn’t understand taking weekends off... *not* being Freelance Police for any amount of time. Sam didn’t feel that way very often, but there was that one night he’d wanted to go out with a nice young lady he’d met at the cafe... Well, Sam had managed to sabotage that spectacularly.
They were alike in so many ways, but yet they were completely different. Sam never regretted spending his life with Max. Except sometimes, rarely and briefly.
Really, he’d gotten used to the way his life was, and the fact that there were some things he’d never have.
******
Sam slept through the rest of the day. His dreams were strange and feverish – dreams of a normal life, with a normal job, as a normal citizen. Visions of offices and commuter trains danced in his head. In his dream there was a ring around his finger, and someone waiting at home for him – soft and welcoming and female.
It was haunting and good, but also strange and disturbing, mostly because it was something he knew he would never have.
Sam woke up in the middle of the night curled up against Max, one arm slung over his midsection. Whatever was afflicting him the day before seemed to have cleared. No fever, no headache, no pains – he felt so much better, especially now that Max was back.
“You came back,” Sam murmured.
“Course I did,” Max replied sleepily. “Without you it just wasn’t the same. No Sam, no fun.” He yawned and stretched. “You okay now? You were tossing and turning. Sounded like you had a bad dream.”
“I’m fine, little buddy. Much better. Thanks,” replied Sam. He pulled Max closer to himself, enjoying the smell and the softness of his fur.
Max put his hand protectively over Sam’s. “Sam, do you ever want a normal life?” He asked softly.
Sam froze. How did Sam know what he’d been thinking about lately? Had he been talking in his sleep? “What do you mean?” he said.
“I mean, did you ever think there’s more to life than running around chasing crazy criminals, hanging around with a nutty rabbit-thing?” Max flipped over to face Sam. “Do you ever feel like something’s missing?”
Sam considered his words carefully. “No. I can’t think of any other vocational path that I’m more suited to than being part of the Freelance Police.”
“Are you sure? I mean... you’ve never thought of settling down with a nice girl and making your granny Ruth a great-grandma?”
Sam shifted onto his back, pulling Max close to his side. “Max, you and I go together like a hand and a glove. Like a gun and a bullet. Like a bunch of noodles and a delightfully folded cardboard take-out box. I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.”
Climbing up to lay across Sam’s torso, Max laid his head down on his folded arms over Sam’s chest. “And you never feel like anything’s missing?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Looking down, he drew little circles in Sam’s chest fur. “Well I do.”
“Huh?” So that’s what this was all about. “So, you mean you’re interested in going out to... find a girl?”
Max threw his head back to laugh. “No, silly! What a horrifying thought. I agree with what you said about us... the noodles and the take-out box and all. I was thinking that, if there’s something missing, something we need, we could, you know, give it to each other.”
“Something... like what?”
“Boy, for such a smart guy, Sam, you sure can be dense sometimes,” teased Max. With his eyes locked onto Sam’s, he inched his hand down slowly, just past the waistband of Sam’s shorts.
“Oh. That.” Sam gulped. He’d only ever thought of that when he was alone, with a box of tissues close at hand. Sometimes he dreamed about it. He’d never ever considered acting on it. He didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize their partnership. And Max was just so... Max. Small, crazy rabbit-thing, who’d never even shown interest in kissing girls.
Sam had thought about this, but to him Max was forbidden fruit. Yet here he was perched on Sam’s bare torso, willing, warm, and as always, nekkid.
Max cocked his head, his ears raised expectantly. “So, waddaya say, pal? Want me to keep going?”
Sam plucked up the courage to touch Max, running his hand across his shoulders, settling on the small of his back, just above his tail. “Can’t think of a reason not to,” he finally managed to say.
Max grinned even wider as he pushed his hand down further. He watched while Sam’s head lolled back onto his pillow.
Sam stared up at the ceiling as Max did things to him he’d didn’t think he was capable of. He somehow wasn’t surprised when Max shimmied downwards, pulling the waistband of his shorts down with him, although he wondered idly if Max had ever done this before. Soon it became clear that he hadn’t.
“Ah – the teeth, Max, watch the teeth!”
******
Later, with Max draped over the back of their old leather armchair, Sam pounded eagerly into him from behind. Sam had been afraid of hurting Max, given their difference of size, but Max was clearly having the time of his life. Dangling nearly a foot off the ground, his toes curled spasmodically, and his puffy tail twitched happily from side to side. His voice thin and high, Max gasped a litany of ‘oh, oh, oh’ with every thrust, or sometimes ‘Sam, Sam, Sam’.
Sam discovered that if put his back into a hard thrust, Max would shout ‘OH SAM!’ while the chair scratched an inch forward across the hardwood floor.
This was so much fun Sam wondered why they hadn’t done it years ago.
******
Lying across Sam’s torso, Max stretched and crossed his legs. “That was great! Let’s do it again tomorrow!”
Spread out flat on the bed, his arms splayed beside him, Sam pulled his tongue in to stop panting for a moment. “Holy nuns on a tractor making out to Cat Stevens on a bright pink boombox. I’d say that was enough to last all week,” he replied to the ceiling.
Max put his chin on his hands and leaned forward. “Pfft. What I mean is... it’ll be midnight in a few minutes, and that’s technically tomorrow. Are you sure you don’t want to go again?”
With effort, Sam chuckled and tilted his head up to see Max’s toothsome grin.
“Little buddy, you crack me up.”
Fin.