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Part Thirty-Four

  Every year on The date of Sam's birth, he requested the same thing. Every year on the date of Sam's birth, he was denied it.

   He parents resorted to telling their only son that it was far too dangerous, especially at such a young age, but Sam found that he could never give up the opportunity to initiate the same question every single year:

   Could he leave the walls?

   Could he go outside, see how his own home fit into the little nooks of the human's, and learn what it meant to be small? If he could only see how big the world really was around him, maybe the adventure within Sam's young body could begin to explore.
  
   Rather than the same boring hallways he traversed with tiptoed feet and quiet whispers, he dreamed of stomping around and yelling out to the world, begging it to offer him whatever it could. He didn't much care for his own safety; just his own curiosity.

   Sam was a little boy, and little boys have a starving appetite for the wide expanse of adventure.

   But he would always be turned down. Pushed away from a future of possibilities and forced into the life of a borrower, stuck inside all day, waiting for his parents to return from their trips to gain materials.

   Sam was a good child. He listened to his mother and father, and so he never complained. He kept quiet, only asking to see outside on his birthdays, always being told to ask for something else.

   And now, here he lay, outside the wall and as far away from a borrower's life as possible, his thirst quenched.

   The bright rays of sun peeked through covered blinds that would've woken Sam up earlier, had he not been through a long night of begging his parents to have a 'sleepover' with his human.

   That was the term they adopted nearly six months ago, after 'being kidnapped' had officially gotten old. Drizzle and Jack constantly joked about Leo stealing Sam away from them for a night or two, but everyone and their mother knew exactly who initiated the requests. For the seventeen year old borrower, a night spent with Leo was considered a delicacy.

   Sam's rat's nest of hair brushed against the soft fabric of Leo's bed shirt, leaving him awake in a warm comfort that couldn't be replicated anywhere else. He didn't want to be awake, especially considering the fact that Leo most likely wouldn't be up either, but the nerves of the big day ahead of him refused to let him sleep.

   Sam allowed Axel the chance to join them last night, but the littlest one denied it, as always. He would much rather use Sam's phone (though it became more of a family phone, now) to text Elijah all night long. Sam knew for a fact that Eli didn't mind one bit.

   Instead, he was able to cherish the alone time he had with his favorite human, the one he was currently waking up on top of as a summer breeze flew in with a wave of heat bristling against it. Sam's ears twitched as a whistle of wind blew against his little head, and he burrowed further into the comfortable fabric underneath him.

   Finally deciding that sitting there and waiting wouldn't do much good, the borrower began to arch his back, similar to that of a kitten after a drawn-out catnap. His tail stretched out to the maximum length, his hair bristled with a tired twinge, and his yawn filled the empty room to accompany the sounds of the wind floating by. Sam was so caught up in his stretch, in fact, that he forgot the toll of balance, and plopped right back down after a mishap with his arm slipping on Leo's shirt.

   Down and defeated, Sam picked up on the soft humming of a laugh from above. It echoed down into the chambers below him, rising up until Sam could feel every deep vibration of Leo's laughter without even trying. His cheeks glew with an embarrassed pink.