The Year of the Salamander - 10. Chapter 10

Blair wasn’t exaggerating when he said the deli served great food. It was amazing. It was quite far away, Blair was right about that too. They had to drive almost half an hour to get there, and after Sam glanced at the speedometer, he thought that if he were ever go there by himself, it would probably take him more than an hour to get there. Blair was going at least twice over the speed limit. Sam didn’t speed himself much; not because he wasn’t sure how good of a driver he was (he could drive just fine, thank you very much) but because he would always be on a somewhat cautious side – you never know when something might happen. Something, like a tire popping, for example. Sam briefly thought that if one of Blair’s tires blew right now, they were going to die pretty much instantly. The thought didn’t scare him, it was simply a fact registering in his brain. To be honest, he enjoyed this wild ride. He smiled to himself, thinking that Blair could easily challenge Desmond when it came to fast driving.

“What?” Blair asked when he noticed the smile.

“I just thought of my friend,” Sam looked at him with the same small smile. “He always drives fast...”

“The same friend whose car you were driving last night?” Blair didn’t take the eyes off the road.

“Yeah,” Sam nodded. “Him. He drives like...” He shrugged. “Well, you,” he finished, and the other man laughed. “I just thought that you two could easily race each other...”

“Who would win?” Blair threw a quick look at Sam, his eyes laughing, as if expecting an ‘Of course, you!’ answer.

“I don’t know,” Sam said honestly, and Blair blinked.

...Sam loved that deli. He made a mental note to self to tell Desmond about this place. He decided against telling Gabriel because he knew that with the way Rayhe drove, it would take him two hours to get here. They were done with food and coffee in a couple of hours, and when Blair mentioned the bowling alley again, Sam looked at him with a small frown.

“You left-handed?” he asked.

“No,” Blair said slowly, clearly puzzled.

“Then how are you going to bowl with your hand?” Sam frowned deeper. Blair hemmed.

“Remember how I told you about fast healing?”

“Yes,” Sam said seriously. “I figured it should be at least a day, not several hours. I've never recovered from things in a few hours,” he nodded. “The quickest for me was a day.”

Blair frowned at that. Sam was about to ask what was the reason for his expression, when the other man pulled off the handkerchief and stretched out his hand. Sam just stared at it. There was nothing there, not even a scratch.

“It wasn’t that big of a cut,” Blair said quietly. “Sam, how badly were you hurt...?”

“Let’s go play,” Sam said, his eyes serene, and Blair nodded without saying anything else.

****

By the time they finished bowling, they were both hungry again, so they went back to that deli. After they ate, Blair said something about the fact that he was almost out of shampoo, so they went to the nearest shopping center, and while they were in some hair place getting the shampoo, Sam remembered that he was serious about getting a haircut yesterday morning. He mentioned that to Blair, and the other man just shrugged and said that he looked fine, but if he wanted to get a haircut, he should go ahead and do just that.

“We are here anyway,” he said while digging through shampoo bottles. “Might as well...”

Sam agreed with that and marched to the counter. The girl behind the counter thoughtfully studied the list in front of her for a minute or so.

“We are booked for the next hour and a half,” she said finally with an apologetic shrug. “Would that be all right?”

“Umm...” Sam said.

“It’ll be fine,” Blair came from behind and set a couple of shampoo bottles on the counter. “We’ll come back.”

“Okay,” the girl nodded and looked up at Sam. “What’s your name?”

“Sam LeVoughn,” Sam said, and she blinked.

“Could you spell that?”

He did, and she nodded and glanced at Blair.

“Do you want to get it now,” she glanced at shampoo, “...or later when you come back?”

“Later,” he nodded. “No need to drag these things around.”

She smiled at that and put the bottles behind the counter.

“I don’t really need a haircut that bad, you know,” Sam looked up at Blair. “No need for you to wait for almost two hours...”

“It’s all good,” Blair shrugged indifferently. “Let’s go get coffee.”

“We had coffee less than an hour ago,” Sam said with a small smile, and Blair grinned.

“There is a coffee place on the second floor... Their espresso is to die for, believe me.”

So they went to that coffee place, and espresso was indeed to die for. Sam was trying to figure out how it was even possible to make coffee like this. Blair just shrugged and said that the owner had some secret, which has been in his family for generations, and he would rather slit his own throat than to let anyone know what that secret was. By the time they were done with several cups of coffee each, it was almost time to go back to the hair place, so they went back, just to stop and gawk at some insanely flexible acrobat a couple of shops down. The acrobat’s move were impressive to say the least, and when they finally remembered about the haircut, they realized that they were five minutes late.

The girl at the counter just waved her hand when Sam started saying his ‘I-am-sorry’s.'

“No big,” she said with authority. “This way!”

He followed her and sat into a big reclining chair. The chair's back promptly fell backwards the minute Sam leaned on it. The girl laughed, pulled the chair back up, and kicked something on the bottom to make it stay put.

“So, what do you have in mind?” she asked quickly.

“Nothing, really,” he shrugged. “It’s just too long. Chop it off...”

“Do you have any particular style in mind?” she bit her lip, thoughtfully studying his hair.

“Not really,” he shrugged again. He never paid much attention to hairstyles.

“Hmmm,” she said thoughtfully and ran her fingers through the long strands. “I think I know the style that would work best for you...” She looked at his face with narrowed eyes, as if studying some sort of a painting she was about to complete. “Do you mind if I cut it in a certain way?”

“Go ahead,” he shrugged yet again. “As long as it doesn’t make me look like I just escaped some sort of an asylum, it’s all good.”

“No asylum, got it,” she nodded very seriously, and he smiled at that.

...Almost an hour later, the girl mumbled something unintelligible, blew on the back of Sam’s neck, and kicked the bottom of the chair once more, making its back to straighten up. She spun the chair around and looked at his face. Then she slowly blinked, and he frowned.

“Oh, man,” he said. “It didn’t work, did it...? I look like an asylum type, huh?”

Her mouth stretched in a slow, satisfied smile, she handed him a round mirror and spun the chair once again, making him to face the big mirror on the wall.

“I don’t think so,” she said somewhat smugly.

Sam looked into the mirror and blinked. The haircut made him look almost completely different. Not like a total stranger, of course, but his eyes seemed bigger now, his entire face looked cleaner somehow, and his neck seemed a hell of a lot longer.

“Huh,” he said thoughtfully, and the girl laughed and spun the chair around.

“Check out the back,” she said, and he raised the round mirror in his hand.

The back of his head looked good as well. It was shorter in the back, and more accurate, while the front still had a couple of longer strands, except now, it didn’t look out of place -- it looked right instead.

“You like?” the girl asked somewhat nervously when he wouldn’t say anything.

He lowered the mirror and looked up at her.

“I like,” he said seriously, and she smiled with relief.

She pulled the tarp-looking thing off his shoulders and brushed the back of his shirt with her palms. When he got to the register where Blair was waiting for him, the other man just blinked somewhat rapidly, and said nothing.

“What do you think?” Sam asked, trying to sound casual.

Blair still wouldn’t say anything, he just gave him several very quick nods instead. Sam smiled with relief. He's given up on trying to rationalize his reaction to this man; he has simply accepted the fact that he felt beyond funny whenever Blair was anywhere around. He paid for the haircut, making sure that he left a good tip, and went outside, following Blair.

“Ah, crap,” Blair slapped his forehead when they were on their way out of the shopping center. “I left my shampoo in there!” he explained after Sam shot him a questioning look. “Be right back!”

He rushed back into the salon, and when he grabbed the bag with shampoo out of the smiling girl’s hands, he quickly slipped her several bills.

“That is a hell of a haircut!” he said quietly, and she grinned.

“Thanks!” she said brightly.

He nodded, grabbed his bag, and went back.

“Got it!” he demonstrated the bag to Sam. “Let’s go!”

...By the time they got back to Blair’s house, it was ten in the evening. They said their goodbyes, and Sam firmly shook his head after Blair asked him whether he wanted to get inside the house for a bit.

“I’m gonna go home,” he said. “Thanks though...”

“Okay,” Blair said with a small sigh. “See you around, I guess...”

“Yeah,” Sam nodded, feeling somewhat uncomfortable and upset right now. He couldn’t think of any reason he would come back here, and it made him frustrated.

“Night, Sam,” Blair smiled.

“Night, Blair,” Sam sighed and went to his car.

The thought of the phone had never even occurred to him until he got home and turned off the engine. That was when he remembered about it, and then he just sat there, blankly staring into space. Finally, he sighed and pulled the phone out of his back pocket. He turned it on and sighed again when it informed him that he had five missed calls from the same number. He dialed that number, only knowing too well whom it belonged to, and closed his eyes when he heard Blair’s voice.

“It’s me,” he sighed. “Blair, I completely forgot about your phone, I am sorry!”

“Yeah,” Blair laughed on the other end of the line. “Me too... Could you drop it off tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” Sam nodded energetically. “I can do it right now if you...”

“No,” Blair interrupted him almost instantly. “Just come tomorrow, okay...? Okay...?” he repeated softer after Sam wouldn’t say anything.

“Yeah,” Sam said quietly. “Okay.”

“Night, Sam...”

“Night, Blair,” he smiled and snapped the phone shut.