you didn't have to offer your hand

SAMUEL stretch out my life & pick the seams out Sam certainly felt like he was a baby sometimes as life continued to dump new experiences and challenges on him, but despite his eternally smooth skin, he knew he wasn't. There was a tiredness in his soul that had really settled in in the last few years, something that he could recognise in Zeph too. He let out a soft laugh as Zeph swayed, surprised that he felt so comfortable around the man's drunkenness. Perhaps it was the knowledge that Zeph would not hurt him, not even as out of his right mind as he was. Sam was happy to help him up the stairs, politely turned his head away as Zeph stripped down: despite the pain of his rejected half-confession, there was something domestic and sweet about the whole thing; he had to swallow a bittersweet taste in his mouth. "I'm not go-going anywhere, Zeph. --- Sam spent a couple of hours sat not-really-reading in the living room, eyes mostly focused somewhere on the top of the book as he thought over everything, wondered if he could have said some magical series of words to make everything work out how it did in his wildest dreams; he concluded there probably wasn't. Zeph, just like everyone else he'd had feelings for, was a mess of his own traumas and issues: besides, they hadn't really known each other too long. Eventually deciding he needed to take his mind off things, he went to start cleaning. He had been tackling the room Zeph had given him recently; which had once been his sons. There were some things he didn't want to move, toys or old trinkets which seemed to sacred to move...but he saw a box in the corner, one that had 'ATTIC' scrawled on the side in Zeph's messy handwriting: figuring it's destination was pretty obvious, he grabbed it and headed upstairs. It was a pain getting up the ladder with the box as well, but eventually he managed. Sam sat on the top of the ladder on the attic floor, pushing the box out to the side; in doing so he knocked another, sending a case flying from the top of the pile down to the ground, where the lid fell off; papers scattered all around. Panicking, not wanting to ruin any of Zeph's things, Sam began to pack them back in. Then, something caught his eye: Ella. The wife that had gone so mysteriously. He held the letter in his hands folded, unsure if he dared to open it. It wasn't his place, but he had to admit he was curious about the woman that had been here once, that had claimed Zeph's heart long before he'd ever met him. Just one look at the letter couldn't hurt: it was probably some inconsequential love letter, he figured. A glance down the ladder later, he began to read. It very quickly became clear that this was not a love letter at all, but a different one indeed. His hands tightened on the edges of the letter as he read, unable to tear his eyes away even as his heart sunk lower and lower, the knowledge that these were not words he ought to read settling in at the same time as a morbid curiosity. So enraptured he was in the letter that he forgot to keep looking down the ladder, one leg resting down on a rung as he held the paper by his knee, staring at it as if it would talk and give him more answers. take what you like, but close my ears and eyes, watch me stumble over and over.