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Max tosses and turns for the better part of an hour before he gives up on sleep.
He doesn’t bother to glance at Sam’s digital clock as he fumbles off the top bunk and out the bedroom. But, looking at the dimness and relative quiet of the city outside, he figures it’s somewhere in the orbit of four in the morning.
Thank God Sam is a deep sleeper, or else Max would have to put marginally more effort into keeping quiet as he leaves the bedroom. Which, frankly, there’s no worse time to give a damn about effort than the asscrack of dawn.
Max is just a bit pissed at his little case of insomnia, which only ever seems to – very conveniently – flare up on their days off. Max will happily admit that he’s got a far better career than ninety-nine per cent of the other fucks on this planet; he gets to run around the world and indulge his violent streak with as much regard to the laws of physics as a Saturday morning cartoon. But he wants days off too. Call him selfish, but sleeping late on a morning off is a pleasure common to every living thing. And that lovely indulgence was very close to being ruthlessly shot in the face -- Old Yellered, if you will -- by insomnia instead of rabies.
Shucking open the fridge with barely enough care to keep the empty beer bottles from rattling in the door, Max contemplates the impulse to shove grated cheese in his mouth like a 4am cheese gremlin. After a moment, he decides that the hedonism of eating straight out the bag of Colby jack would make him feel just a little too gross.
Self-restraint wins this time, for once. There must be a blue moon out.
He keeps a wistful eye on the bag of cheese as he grabs the milk carton, though. “Maybe next time, old friend,” Max gently whispers to it, then proceeds to nuke a mugful of milk in the microwave.
After the timer pings obnoxiously he almost drops the mug on his first attempt at grabbing it, the ceramic ready to melt into a puddle of non-microwave-safe BPA. “Goddamnit, don’t those Taiwanese sweatshops know to make these mugs microwavable by now?” he hisses to no one, half expecting Sam to quip something back.
His second attempt at retrieving the mug ends with him leaning back against the linoleum counter and sipping his warmed milk contemplatively. After some reflection, the lagomorph shuffles to the tiny pantry and pours some Coca-Cola in, then tastes it again: perfection. It’s like a finely aged Coke float, with all the ice cream melted after it’s sat out a while. It fulfils his desire to indulge in something gross but is just a touch more refined than swallowing shredded cheese straight, no chaser.
Max leans back against the stove and stares out the window on the other side of the kitchen, hot mug of Coke-milk in hand. Even just before dawn, the artificial lights of Manhattan are bright as any moon, neon rays casting lineless blobs of colours like stained glass onto the kitchen’s small, barely-used dining table. Max has kind of forgotten what stars looked like, now that he thinks about it; but he could never give up light-polluted New York City and her blissful insanity for stargazing. Not for the world. New York is his asylum and his church, and the Freelance Police are its warden and priest all in one. Probably better than priests, as the number of children they've touched is a grand total of zero.
Max is rarely grateful for much, but goddamn is he glad Sam dragged them both here.
Ah, Sam. What a guy. Max smirks a little into his mug. They'd started out as a pup and a kit, barely able to hold their own against a schoolyard bully in an upstate suburb. Now, Max filed his teeth to points every night just to get the right amount of bite in his smile.
Max’s personality growth was all thanks to his canine pal. It was Sam with the idea of freelance policing, of turning their mutual chaotic-good natures into a career. It was Sam that helped Max start passing as a guy once he got his gender shit figured out; he was even to cheer him on as he stormed a court, dual-wielding pistols, to change his legal name from Maxine to Maxwell . And, day in and day out, it was Sam that would be there to save Max’s soft, furry ass because he knew Max would do the same; to raise Hell for Sam's sake with a toothy smile.
They were practically married by this point, honestly, what with how they lived, worked, and bickered together.
Max blinks at the soft blurs of colour on the table, all unshapen primary colours like a melted crayon box, and is reminded of stained glass again. The idea of marriage isn't completely abhorrent. Max certainly isn’t opposed to marrying Sam for the tax benefits (nevermind that they don’t pay taxes anyway). A wedding would certainly be a good excuse to gorge himself on cake, too. And the bachelor party beforehand would rock . Maybe they could even blow up the church when they’re done with it.
The lagomorph taps his finger against his mug and takes a long sip of it.
Yeah. Marrying Sam wouldn’t be bad. Not much would change, anyway.
Max makes a note to himself to propose to Sam in the morning, knowing that he’ll forget it the second he falls asleep.
He stares out the window a little longer, the quiet slipping into him and stilling his racing mind from lightspeed to Mach 1. It’s peaceful, but this time the feeling doesn’t make him want to stir something up just to break the peace. It just feels like existing, with the moment stretching timelessly into neon lights and a mugful of Coca-Cola and milk.
It’s a few moments later that Max realises he’s nodding off into his drink, the tip of his nose wet from his head falling forward. Max throws back the rest of his lukewarm dairy Coke abomination like a shot and sets the mug on the counter to be forgotten for a few days.
When he’s back in the bedroom after softly closing the door again, he turns over his shoulder to look at Sam on the bottom bunk, still fast asleep. Sam is on his side facing Max, one arm splayed out towards the edge and the other under his pillow.
Well. Max is just so tired, he can’t imagine having to climb up the ladder back up to his top bunk. And he figures he’d better get used to sleeping in the same bed as his husband , for Christ’s sake.
It's through this unbreakably clear, perfect logic that leads him to gently pick up Sam’s arm, slide himself underneath, then replace it over himself like a blanket. The weight of it is very comfortable and grounds him in the bed; and when he feels the heat of Sam’s stomach against his back and feels it press in and out with his breath in a slow, steady rhythm, it makes him feel even quieter and even more still.
The adjectives quiet and still have never applied to him before. But, while quietness and stillness still don’t feel normal, it certainly feels nice right now.
Focusing on sleeping, Max tries to match the pace of Sam’s slow breaths with his own and shuts his eyes.
He feels Sam’s arm squeeze around his stomach just a little bit, pulling him against Sam’s body a little more. Max smiles a little -- even in his sleep, he’s such a sentimental bastard -- before finally falling asleep, neon signs still shining their vivid lights through the window, colours like church-window stained glass.