Chapter Twenty Seven
Sawyer
The moment Sawyer crawled into the bed, that was far more comfortable than the shitty mattress in that basement that he distinctly remembered thinking it wasn't that bad, his body deflated. Exhausted didn’t really even come close to describing what he was.
But even with how exhausted he was, there was a part of him that was still wired up.
How could he just go to bed after everything that happened?
When he was in the bunker, that was just life.
He was used to the chaos and the carnage.
But he wasn’t there anymore. His life had changed dramatically in the course of twenty four hours and he was still trying to figure out how to exactly process that.
In the shower, he cried. Again. Now that he didn’t have Milo around to tell him it was wrong, he felt okay about doing it but he wasn’t going to make a habit of it.
And a good cry was needed and warranted he felt.
Not just because of what happened to Cole, which he still felt horrendous about and he doubted he would ever not feel that way.
But simply because the life that he knew was gone.
It was a good thing. A very good thing. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t stressful.
He didn’t bother to close the door to his bedroom.
He probably could have but it felt safer with it open.
Not that he didn’t think he was safe at the current juncture but just in case.
Sawyer tucked his arms behind his head and stared up at the ceiling for a few moments before he closed his eyes.
It was shocking how quickly he had managed to fall asleep.
Apparently his exhaustion outdid the other feelings he had.
For the next few hours, he slept rather soundly.
Probably the best sleep he had in months but the urge to use the bathroom unfortunately roused him.
As quietly as he could, he wandered over to the bathroom, relieved his aching bladder and washed his hands.
When he passed by Benji’s room the first time, he heard him roll over but didn’t think much about it.
But when he passed by again and heard him moving around again, he couldn’t help but quietly approach the doorway.
He didn’t have his door shut either so Sawyer was able to peer inside the room, just wanting to make sure that everything was okay.
The light from the window illuminated enough of the man for Sawyer to see that his face was anything but serene.
He rubbed at his good palm a bit awkwardly as he thought about what to do.
Was he having a nightmare? Was waking him up a good idea?
Should he just go back to bed and pretend he didn’t see anything?
Sawyer rolled his eyes. Of course he couldn’t do that.
But he also just couldn’t leave Benji there to sleep like shit on his first night of freedom.
He moved quietly into the man’s bedroom and walked to the side of the bed where Benji wasn’t.
Things were different when Benji was trapped in the basement.
He didn’t mind him snuggling up to him then.
But things could very well be different now that they weren’t there.
Sawyer decided that he was going to risk it anyway.
If Benji didn’t want him there, he could kick him out.
As gently as he could, he pulled himself onto the bed and underneath the blankets.
Benji didn’t seem to notice so Sawyer took the opportunity to move closer and closer to him.
He pressed his chest against Benji’s back and that was when he finally took notice of him.
The man stiffened a bit against him like he had the first time Sawyer had held him, but once Sawyer wrapped his arm around his middle, just like he did the first time as well, he relaxed.
Benji molded his body into Sawyer’s and his hand softly rested on his arm.
Sawyer was still quite tired so the moment his head rested on the pillow, he fell asleep again, but his arm didn’t budge from around Benji until he woke back up in the morning due to the sound of the burner phone's text tone going off. It was enough to jolt them both awake and Sawyer gingerly rolled over onto his back, rubbing his eyes while Benji checked the text. He released a puff of air and said, “It’s Jackson. He said Lindsey will be here in a few hours.”
“Okay, cool,” Sawyer mumbled, still in the process of waking up.
Benji laid back down in the bed beside Sawyer, adjusted the blanket quite a bit around his waist area and placed his hands on his stomach, gazing up at the ceiling. “How did you sleep?”
“Really well,” he admitted, “Probably the best in a long time,” he glanced over to Benji. “What about you?”
He could see Benji’s cheeks redden a bit as he nodded. “Pretty good once uh…you know.”
Sawyer smiled a bit. “Yeah… Were you having a nightmare?”
Benji shrugged. “I don’t know… Don’t really remember.”
“Do you not remember your dreams?”
“Sometimes I do. Just…don’t recall last night’s, I guess…” He trailed off and glanced over to Sawyer. “Is that why you…?”
He nodded. “Yeah. You were tossing and turning,” Sawyer returned Benji’s gaze. “I figured it would be okay because we had done it before.”
“Yeah…yeah, it was definitely okay.” He fell silent and looked back up at the ceiling as if something was really interesting up there, so Sawyer looked as well. They were silent for a long moment before Benji spoke up again. “Do you have a…a girlfriend or something?”
Sawyer’s brow arched a bit at that question.
Was Benji fishing? He didn’t really expect it, to be quite honest, but now that they weren’t locked up in a basement and were somewhat safe, he supposed talking about things like that made sense.
“No, I don’t. There weren’t a lot of good candidates for that around the bunker. ”
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
“Mostly guys there. And the ladies there were more cougars.”
“Not your style?” He joked.
“No, not really.”
Benji nodded but declined to say anything. He just looked down at his hands and twiddled his thumbs.
“There were a couple guys around there that were okay-ish though,” Sawyer pressed, which seemed to get Benji’s attention more. “They weren’t necessarily my type either, but I preferred them over the women.” He paused and shrugged, “Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.”
“Right, yeah. Of course.”
“What about you?”
Benji’s cheeks flushed a soft pink from the question and he was clearly surprised that the question was reciprocated but if Benji wanted to fish, Sawyer did too. “No, no. No uh…significant other.”
“I’ve never had a significant other,” Sawyer admitted. “Since I never really left, it was hard to date. And I didn’t want to date someone there. That would just…be weird. And awkward.”
“Have you been on a date?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I have. A few. Cole would drive me to the place and pick me up. But it just…never really worked out. Seemed too hard to swing. Plus, I’d have to hide a whole part of myself to whoever I was dating and that just seemed wrong.”
“Yeah, I get that. That’s probably the biggest reason why I never really have a partner.”
“You have though? In the past?”
“I’ve had three. They didn’t last more than a month though,” Benji shrugged.
Another moment of silence passed by them but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. It was just them ruminating on what was said, really. But Sawyer decided he wasn’t done. “Are you…bisexual then?”
Benji released a puff of air and shook his head. “No, I’m gay. Came out when I was like…thirteen or something,” he glanced at Sawyer, “But you are …?”
“Pansexual, I think is the term. But I never really think much about that kind of stuff.”
He nodded. “Cool.”
Sawyer smiled a rather wide one. “Cool.”
Their eyes connected for the first time in a while and Sawyer had the overwhelming urge to comment on how cute Benji’s pink cheeks were, but he managed to keep that to himself.
He was glad they were able to talk about that with each other.
It had clearly been on Benji’s mind and it would be a lie to say that he hadn’t been wondering about it either.
Benji’s gaze shifted over Sawyer’s face for a moment before he released a breath and sat up in the bed.
“I’m going to get dressed and make some breakfast.”
Sawyer cleared his throat and sat up as well before he threw his legs over the side of the bed. “Yeah, right. Sounds good.”
“Then we can…find a good place to try and sanitize for your surgery.”
He nodded. “That’s a good idea.” Sawyer threw a quick smile towards Benji before he exited the bedroom so he could get dressed for the day as well.
There was a knock on the front door which Benji went to answer after looking through the peephole and within a moment, Lindsey was stepping inside with a medical cooler and her bag of medical supplies. “Good morning, boys.”
“Good morning,” Sawyer smiled. “Thanks for coming out here again.”
“Not a problem at all. I have the skin graft here. Usually we take it from you but considering your situation, I don’t think that is going to be technically feasible.
So, the plan is really for me to just…patch the holes, more or less, so at least it won’t just be a festering hole in your hand anymore. ”
“That’s an awful way to phrase that…” Sawyer mumbled. “Sorry, but it’s true. When things are less this,” she waved her hand around the area, “Then you can schedule a full surgery with me to really take care of the issue. But for right now, this will have to do.”
He nodded. “I understand. Thank you.”
Lindsey just nodded and began to get to work on re-sanitizing the kitchen, which Benji and Sawyer had spent the last twenty minutes doing, and setting up her work station to be as sterile as she possibly could.
He watched her set up her tools meticulously and as nervous as he was about it, he felt like he was going to be in good hands.
He really wasn’t sure how he could ever repay Benji for everything he had done for him.
He got him out of that bunker and into a safe environment.
He was able to get him medical care… It was just a lot for Sawyer.
People usually didn’t care enough about him to do all of that.
But Benji was different, clearly. After everything he had endured by the hands of his uncle, he didn’t have to treat Sawyer as well as he had been and it would have made sense.
But he didn’t seem to care about that and just wanted them both safe.
“Alright. I’m all set here. Sawyer, take a seat. Benji, you don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay.”
She nodded. “Just don’t touch anything.”
Once Sawyer had sat down, Lindsey got to work numbing the area that she was going to be working on with some lidocaine.
She mentioned it was the best she could do and it was probably going to be uncomfortable but he could deal with it.
He tried his best not to watch what she was doing because, honestly, it made him a bit queasy, but it was hard not to.
The skin graft, which he learned was actually an allograft because it didn’t come from himself, looked weird.
It was like a mesh material but she said it would eventually graft to his own skin and bind over the hole in just a few days.
Talk about a medical marvel.
The actual procedure wasn’t too bad. The stitching felt like a weird pressure on his hand but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.
And honestly, he would have put up with anything if it meant that he didn’t have a hole in his hand anymore.
Sure, he couldn’t feel parts of it anymore and a couple of his fingers didn’t move like they used to, but all things considered, he still thought he was lucky.
He could still move his thumb, index and pinky so he was going to chalk that up into the win column.
Benji stood near him, watching Lindsey’s handiwork intently.
At one point, he had softly placed his hand on his shoulder and rubbed his thumb along it, just providing him some sort of support and comfort.
Neither of them really thought much about it.
At that point, it just felt kind of natural. Sawyer liked it, honestly.
Once she was complete with stitching the graft to both sides of his hand, she wrapped it back up and began to clean up the area, which Benji assisted her with. “Try to take it easy with that hand. I know it’s hard because it's your hand, but the less strain you put on it, the better.”
“Yeah, makes sense.”
“How long are you going to be here for?”
Sawyer glanced over to Benji, who then answered. “Well, probably a couple more days at least. We have a handful of things we need to figure out.”
She nodded. “I’ll try to swing by one more time before you go but I’ll give you my number so you can contact me when you get your life figured out. That graft isn’t a permanent solution. So the sooner the better, okay?”
“Okay, will do.”
Lindsey grabbed a pen and paper from her bag and jotted down her phone number, leaving it on the kitchen counter for them. “You two take care. Call me if you need anything in the meantime.” She grabbed her bag and cooler then headed out the door.
Benji made sure to lock it back up before he released a breath and turned back to Sawyer. “You feel okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I feel good. That wasn’t too bad.”
“Good.”
Sawyer smiled a bit then nodded towards the living room. “Do you want to watch something? And by something, I mean Marley and Me?”
Benji chuckled. “Yeah, we can watch that…” He trailed off.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he quickly added before he sighed then shrugged. “I just think…I should try to call my sister. Before we watch that.”
“Oh. Yeah. Of course. I can uh…go upstairs. Give you some privacy.”
“Do you mind?”
“No, no. Not at all.” Sawyer smiled a bit before he started walking towards the stairs. “Take your time.”
Benji just nodded and up the stairs Sawyer went to give him the time he needed.