MR. BORN TO LOSE

1 - Donatello

"Sam, I'm saying this as your friend,"

Connie puts his hand on Sam's shoulders and looks him in the eyes. "Are you fucking insane?" He throws him a question. Connie had been awake for a few minutes, so of course this wasn't him talking in his sleep, and with the way his eyes pierced into Sam's, he knew Connie was being dead serious.

"...Is that a bad thing?" Sam questions.

"Fucking hell. Well of course it's a bad thing you-..." Connie manages to restrain himself from going off on his dear idiot friend. Who the hell suddenly tries to go 5 thousand miles to investigate some stupid book in the middle of a deadline. "Okay, what makes you think whatever this shit you're planning is, will it be a good idea?" Connie tries to logically force some senses into his fried brain.

Sam pulls up his fist, pulling a finger up. "Well, first of all, I could investigate further on the culture and on the writer's surroundings..." He pauses, looking for Connie's approval, before raising another finger.

"Second of all, I could use a short vacation right now..." He looks into Connie's eyes, to only find disappointment. "Third of all-"

Connie cuts off his words before continuing it for him. "Third of all, you want more content to feed into your Leonard hyperfixation, yes?"

Sam looks away slowly, "..Maybe."

The taller guy sighs dramatically. "You really need to reconsider all of this abrupt planning. 1100 dollars is not little." It's 4 AM and the guy just wants to save his friend from eternal debt and sleep in peace, like their college tuition wasn't enough. Sam rethinks for a few seconds, and sighs, he knows Connie's right.

"Yeah, sorry..." He opens back his laptop, displaying the previous airline website he was researching. Connie lays on his bed and continues to snore. What should he do now...? There's practically nothing interesting in the room now, the last thing he wants to do is to continue his thesis.

"You want breakfast?" Sam nudges the half asleep Connie. He squints his eyes at the light "Huh... yeah.. sure i guess.. stop waking me up...." He rolls his body away from Sam, immediately falling asleep again.

Sam stands up and walks towards the kitchen once more, with Otto following him from behind. A yawn manages to escape his lips, although these sleepless nights have been normal for him. He probably already had too much caffeine every night to develop some kind of insomnia. His dormmates are all wondering how he will survive and not get a cardiac arrest, or whatever the name is, as if he cares. He would gladly die of some stupid reason only after someone actually deciphers Leonard's diary.

Speaking of the diary, he had tried to search for more pages, words, or even singular letters on the internet that could help him decipher just anything in that damn book, but to no avail.

"The warmth pooled your face
carrying aeons of fervent flames
only to serve their purpose of shining your divine face i so wish to caress every second.
Those lights carry history on your face
and you are my greek statue."

-Was the very last page of the book before burnt pages started to appear.

'Damn, this man was really a romanticist' He thought to himself. And he wasn't wrong too, his works communicate that idea very well. But sadly, Sam hasn't yet found that feeling. In his 18 years of life, he hadn't really felt true love like how Leonard described. By choosing to write his thesis on this, he had hoped to not only understand Leonard's work, but also to understand love on its own. But so far, no explanation has surfaced.

"-Sam. Hello?? Earth to Sam." A voice called out.

He quickly woke up from his little daydream, to find a short guy waving his hand in front of his face. "Holy shit, what are you even trying to do?" He speaks as he gets rid of the pan from the stove. Sam glances towards the pan and finds his supposed sunny-side-up egg now burnt to a crisp.