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It hurt him most when the mornings were softer than whatever touches he remembered from his mother.
In order to scrape up enough money to make their way to East Flubria, Guy and Sam sought to establish some sort of pattern. They would both get jobs (somehow), find a place to stay (somewhere), and put their (somewhat) extra bruckles into the little terracotta pot that Sam put on the front windowsill. He adorned it with washi tape and little green egg stickers-a concept at which guy scoffed at first, but Sam knew it to be halfhearted when he first caught the Knox’s eyes lingering on the candy-striped trim when he deposited a handful of coins.
Sam didn’t bring up what he saw.
Whereas Guy was able to assimilate into the paint-watching profession, Sam had no such luck. The thing was, the bush Knox had experience; Sam had always been cautious to bury his past, bury it into the soil beside his own crime scenes, watch it rot and wither away before he could birth someone new, next in line to dedicate their “life” to the word of Snerz. He had no technical experience. He had no working past. He was a felon. No matter how meticulously he combed his whiskers or covered the scar at the dock of his tail, Sam I Am was a felon.
So, Sam spent his days planning, mapping, coming to terms with his upcoming confrontation. Guy’s alarm would rouse them both in the early hours of the day, and they’d go about their morning routine in the cramped space of their one-bedroom flat. Guy stood under the cracked veneer of the doorframe, allowing the pampas Who to fix his tie and run a paw through his fur before he turned and left for work.
But the door would click shut, and Sam would lay back in the bed he shared with his bush Knox partner, put his paws to his eyes and think, think so hard that the corners of his vision shifted with the beating of his heart. What could happen? What would happen? Was he even on the right path? She had to be there. She had to. Sam neglected to think of a sequence of events that violated this statement, this axiom that glued his future together.
Guy told him to go back to sleep, to get more rest when he left for work. The pampas Who reassured him that it was fine, it was just 7:30 in the morning, he’d make up for it by going to bed early with Guy. Day gave way to night, though, and Sam drank so much from the thought that he shared a sky with his mother that he forgot to sleep at night. He just had to hope that the Knox did not notice the way his eyelids hung lower when he waved goodbye in the mornings.
For some reason, though, Guy’s daily departure was sharper than the fox’s tooth. He couldn’t quite say why.
Weeks passed on gossamer wings, the terracotta pot got fuller and fuller, and Sam began to think about Guy as much as he did his own mother.
As he haphazardly “livened” up the flat with trinkets and tapes, he thought more of the tastes of his roommate than of his own, the green motif slowly surrendering itself to mauve and iris. The fridge became the home of not only green eggs and ham but also truffula fruits and plums, because Guy was convinced the pampas Who would develop scurvy at some point. Popcorn occupied the space next to the dried oats on the counter, because Sam caught the Knox eyeing it longingly once when they were shopping. Every now and then, when it was affordable, a scrap of roast beast made itself home in their thrifted little crockpot, cooked the way Guy remembers from some random family outing fifteen years ago. Corners were dusted and air filters replaced, picked free of fur and dander after Guy had a runny nose for a single weekend.
It was unintentional, but it was natural, natural like the flow of the wind through his fur. Unnatural was the thump-thumping of his heart when Guy crawled into bed next to him, getting closer night by night until the Who would awake in a sea of caramel-gingerbread fur. Unnatural was the flush under his cheek fur that would paint him when the Knox barked in genuine laughter, his stout tail shuffling in a barely-concealed wag. Unnatural was the prickle of his hackles when Guy would speak of his coworkers, how cruel they were to him, their acrid tongues and knitted brows, a reaction so visceral that Sam could not control the emergence of his own ivory claws, bound to leave marks by his thighs in the wood of his chair.
Most unnatural of all was the affection, the domesticity of his roommate, who hand-washed Sam’s shirt in the little bathroom sink, who offered to cook green eggs and ham after a ten-hour work shift, who spun the terracotta pot in his paws and replaced the withered stickers and tape as they peeled away. The pampas Who couldn’t handle it, the way haste touches evolved into the combing of claws through fur, and the space between their sleeping forms dissolved into warmth, the crown-shyness erased in the wake of embraces and reassuring snuzzles when Sam found himself shaking, shaking with the weight of tears only a mother could cause.
The bubble burst as he was thinking one morning. He stood in the window and watched Guy walk away, stayed until the sun was wide awake and cast her gaze on the Who. When he caught the glint of a tall pile of bruckles from the corner of his vision, nearly to the tape on the lip of the pot, something popped, something ugly and awful. He did not want this to end. He did not want to leave. Whatever unnatural thing he had felt was suddenly painful, painful when they would fall asleep together, painful when they cooked and cleaned, painful when the morning’s caress was as soft as a mother’s touch, oh, especially then.
The revelation made his eyes widen, sent tremors through his body. Dear God, this can’t be love. This can’t be love.
Sam turned so quickly to rush away that the terracotta pot crashed to the floor.
“Sam? Are you here?”
The Knox’s voice rang through the dark flat . He carefully sidestepped the bruckles and sticker-adorned shards on the floor, turning on lights as he went, looking for his roommate. How hard could it be to find someone so canary-bright?
Guy started when he finally got a response. “Uh- yeah! I'm here Guy! Just... just in the bathroom!”
“Sam, are you alright? The pot fell.”
A pause. “...yeah, it sure did!”
“Did you get hurt? Did it land on your paw?”
“No! No, I'm fine!”
“Well, that’s good.” He paused, glanced around the kitchen and living room. Nothing had moved since he left, not the dishes from breakfast, not the popcorn on the counter. Anxiety rose like bile in his throat. “Why... why didn’t you clean up the pot?”
Silence. Again, “Sam, are you alright?”
More, more silence.
Guy picked up their dishes and put them in the sink before making his way to the bathroom. The door was closed, but the lights hadn’t been turned on. When he tried to open the door, it was locked. He pressed his ear to it. “Sam?”
“I’m alright, just... just a little sick is all. No worries, buddy!”
“Sick? Sick enough to lock yourself in the bathroom all day?”
Sam forced a laugh. “It’s a doozy. Must’ve been something I ate.”
“You cooked the same breakfast you always do.”
“...maybe the eggs were expired?”
“I just bought them yesterday.”
“Maybe-”
“ Sam. ”
His tone hadn’t been so stern since he was in holding, interrogated for a crime he hadn’t meant to commit. The tension in the flat could be cut by his own dull claws. When the Who didn’t respond, Guy sighed, turned so his back was to the bathroom, and sank to his haunches in front of the door.
“Sam, I thought we agreed to stop lying to each other. Please, tell me what’s wrong.”
“I can’t.”
The answer was so immediate it was jarring, almost electric, causing the bush Knox’s fur to stand on end. “Why not?”
“It hurts too much.”
“More than... more than what you said in the tent?”
Through the door, Guy heard Sam sniff. Otherwise, the Who did not make a sound.
“Sam, please open the door.”
After a handful of minutes and a couple of shuffle-shuffles of paws on the ground, the lock clicked open. When Sam did not emerge, Guy took it upon himself to enter the bathroom and flick the light on. There was a cup of water by the sink, bone-dry and neglected, the saddest thing in the room second to the heap of yellow fur on the floor.
“Guy, please-”
“I love you, you know that?”
Sam shot up to his haunches, eyes wide and puffy and pinkish-red. The fur on his cheeks was wet and matted.
“I love you, you yipping idiot. I love watching you cook in the morning and get ready with me, even if you have nowhere to go. I look forward to seeing you when I get home from a long day at work.” The Knox maintained eye contact with the Who, watching him straighten his back as though the tension from Guy was filling his body instead. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, you know? When I don’t see you or hear you when I come home, I get very worried. You are dear to me. Please, just tell me what’s wrong. I can’t stand to see you hurt again. Oh God, please don’t start crying-”
His words fell on deaf ears as Sam hauled himself off the floor and flung himself into Guy, who teetered before catching his balance one more. The Knox sighed, petting the pampas Who’s back as he sobbed into the ruff of fur around his neck. They stayed like that for several minutes, the sun falling, the stars peeking through the window as though there was a secret to tell. Slowly, his crying devolved into the occasional hiccup, and they swayed in each other’s grasp in the incandescent light of the bathroom.
“So, are you gonna tell me what’s wrong now?”
“ Mmph .”
“What was that?”
Sam emerged from the coarse tan fur and peered up to make eye contact with Guy. Something was there, something was there in his gaze that Guy had never seen before, the shine of once buffy rock turned to diamond by stress and pressure, the glimmer of beach sand when the sun is perfectly hung in the sky. “I love you, too.”
Guy huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, I know that.”
“You WHAT?” Sam shrieked, tumbling backwards into the wall while Guy cackled in front of him.
“Was that it? Was that what was wrong?” Guy forced between the peals of laughter. “Did you think I didn’t know?”
“ I didn’t know!”
This only seemed to make Guy laugh harder, much to the chagrin of the Who. “Stop laughing! This is serious!”
He didn’t, not for another minute, paws clutching the doorframe to keep himself upright. Finally, the Knox sighed, straightened himself, and smiled dumbly at the Who in front of him.
“Yeah, I really do love you.” With that, Guy stepped forwards and put his paws to Sam’s cheeks, carding his fingers through the long fur and relishing in the warmth beneath it. Softly, with the care of handling a porcelain bird, he leaned down and snuzzled his cheeks against Sam’s, right then left then right again, mixing his own scent and fur with Sam’s own tear-stained self. “You may be an idiot, but you’re my idiot. How could I not love you?”
Sam stayed still and silent, his only motion coming from the pushes and pulls of Guy. When their eyes met once again, a smile stretched across his face. “I’m... I’m your idiot?”
“Yeah. You definitely are.”
“When... when we leave, when we reach East Flubria... will I still be?”
“Always. No matter what.”
Sam’s ears perked up at the admission and he giggled, giggled after crying so hard, flinging himself once more into the pale ocean of fur in front of him. In the living room, beneath the shards of terracotta, hundreds of little bruckles gleamed not only with the light of the stars and their secrets, but with the bleached light of an incandescent lightbulb as well.