When it comes to Lazarus, typically things warrant notice when they are not awkward. That being said, he's accustomed to seeing himself in a certain spare, unappealing light that automatically negates any small notion that he might be in any way desirable, considering himself a stark realist in that regard. An attractive or experienced man might try to examine certain gestures and sift through them like sand for seashells in a quest for buried meaning, but Lazarus is almost willfully ignorant of them, to the point where they come full circle and wind up reciprocated anyway.

The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else.

He turns the glass in his hands, thinking about all the fingerprints he's leaving without his gloves. The DNA on the rim. The alcohol, making him a little bit more and a little bit less of who he really is.

The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly.

He doesn't mean to be distracted from the movie, but the corner of a photo frame is ever-present in his peripheral vision, lit just enough by the flickering lights thrown off by the television to show two young men, both precious, smiling, irreplaceable.

He bites his lip when Cesar's hand squeezes his shoulder, then slips away from it, breaking a connection, going for a chip.

L leans forward too.

I want to believe we're friends and that this is a good night. I want to believe that every night leading up to this one has been good, too, at least in that way. I want some truth in my life to be exquisite.

It's not an accident, but he goes above and beyond making it look that way, grasping Cesar's index finger instead of a chip while the other man's hand is still in the bowl.

"Sorry...! For a second, I thought you were... food."