Work Text:
Guy sighed, laying back with his hands folded across his stomach.
“What a day,” he muttered to himself. “I wake up in my old treehouse, fight a goat on a boat, lose and mend several relationships, and put a wild Chickeraffe on a balloon.” He chuckled, the sound swallowed by the pale walls of the hotel room Michellee had absolutely insisted on paying for (the fact that he and Sam had no money left had factored in, but he didn’t feel good about it). He was bone tired, but wide awake mentally. Thinking about Michellee, about Sam and Jenkins, about all the things he’d learned.
“And now I’m going home. Hm.” He closed his eyes and shifted his body back into the plush comforter, trying to settle his mind enough to sleep, but it raced along just the same.
Then someone knocked on the door.
Guy’s eyes shot open and he growled, rolling out of bed and trudging toward the door. “If I open the door to find yipping room service bringing me gree—Sam?”
“Hi.”
The door swung open to reveal Sam, looking smallish and saddish without his hat, looking up at Guy with those huge heart-melting eyes.
“I need to talk to you,” Sam said quietly.
“Oh, well—sure, come on in,” Guy offered, stepping aside. Sam pattered in wordlessly, looking around.
“I really like your room.”
“Isn’t it the same as yours?” Guy shut the door quietly and followed Sam.
“Yeah, except flipped around and with you in it,” Sam said. His voice was too even, too quiet, and Guy’s first instinct was to think that something must be awfully wrong for him to be so sullen. Then came a horrible creeping dread that this was the real Sam, that the Sam of the past week had been part of his persona and that his friend was really—
“I’m really sorry I lied to you, Guy,” Sam choked out, moonlit silhouette looking at the floor almost sheepishly.
Guy breathed deeply, then brushed past Sam to sit on the bed, the mattress sinking under his weight. At his friend’s questioning look, he patted the covers beside him, looking up with an encouraging smile. Sam trudged over and hopped up, significantly less sprightly than usual. He didn’t even rub himself all over Guy or try to crawl into his lap. He just…sat, a respectable distance away, looking like he wanted to wither up into a little crumple and die.
After a few moments of deep silence, the muffled sounds of Meepville traffic beeping outside, Guy realized Sam wasn’t going to continue. He was staring at his feet, which he was fiddling around and rubbing together anxiously.
“Sam?” Guy asked, placing his hands on his own knees awkwardly.
“It was wrong,” Sam said. “I shouldn’t have lied to you and I shouldn’t have lied to E.B., and I should never have even thought about selling Mr. Jenkins.” He rested his head in his hands, then conked his forehead with a fist. “I’m a dope,” he said thickly. “I should have called the deal off a long time ago.”
“You should have,” Guy agreed. “But you did the right thing.”
Sam’s head whipped around and suddenly those big eyes were pleading at Guy full force. “But what if I didn’t? What if it was too late, and Mr. Jenkins was stuck in that awful place forever and you—” he broke off and shook his head. “I’m awful,” he groaned.
“Sam,” Guy admonished him.
“I am. I wasn’t even gonna be sorry!”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Guy said, leaning back and looking down at his friend. “You cared about me and Jenkins from the moment you met us.”
“I cared more about having a buddy than about how I treated you.” Sam set his chin in his hands with a little huff.
“But you did the right thing,” Guy repeated lamely. The more he said it, the worse it sounded, as far as justification went.
Sam whimpered and buried his face in his hands. Something tugged loose in Guy’s chest. He rested a gentle hand on Sam’s back, which was so narrow that his palm nearly swallowed it up.
“You screwed up,” Guy said gruffly. Sam shifted under him a little, curling into himself as if physically wounded by the words. “Bad. But so did I.” Sam’s little back hitched. “I would do just about anything to take back what I said to you.” He stroked Sam’s back hesitantly once and felt him relax a little, so he kept going. “Being lied to hurt, but nothing could ever be bad enough to warrant the way I behaved.”
“It’s okay, Guy. I forgive you.” The statement was light and slow, a little confused, perhaps. As if Sam couldn’t quite fathom why they had to go through this again. Sam turned a bit to look at Guy, rubbing at his face with one hand.
“And I forgive you, too.” Guy smiled, hoping it didn’t look as strange as it felt. He wasn’t used to it, he realized. Smiling.
Haltingly, as if he’d discovered personal boundaries for the first time, Sam turned and wrapped his arms around Guy, burying his face in his scruff. Guy reciprocated, wrapping his arms fully around the tiny Who and pulling them tight against each other.
“You’re a good person, Sam. You don’t deserve to be hurt.”
Sam squeezed him tighter and began to shake with quiet little sobs, and all Guy could do was relax into him and rub his back comfortingly.
After a long time, Sam pulled away and looked up at Guy with those big moonlit eyes. “Could I sleep with you tonight? I don’t wanna be alone.”
Guy hesitated. They’d already shared a room, and a box, and Sam just about tried to crawl under his skin any chance he got. What harm was sleeping in the same bed going to do?
“Sure,” he grunted.
“Yesss!” Sam pumped his fists, a little life seeping back into him. He extracted himself fully from Guy’s arms before crawling across the plush comforter and burrowing into bed like a weevil.
Guy chuckled and shook his head, standing slowly and pausing halfway up. Augh, his back shouldn’t have hurt so much, not at his age. He stretched with a little groan, feeling something pop, before peeling back the comforter and slipping underneath to nestle himself in. He could feel Sam’s body heat seeping into him.
“Snuzzle me?” Sam asked, a sly little drawl creeping into his voice.
“Pushing it,” Guy grumbled, scooting toward Sam the tiniest bit. Sam took this as his invitation to snuzzle on in, pulling himself into the curve of Guy’s body, head tucked under his chin and face in his fluff. Guy stiffened, startled by the intimacy. Sam was always touchy, but this was different. Maybe it was because they were wrapped up in the same blanket, or that they were laying down, vulnerable and exposed without their hats, but this felt like a sudden leap in their relationship.
He wrapped his arms around Sam and heaved a sigh, feeling the familiar heaviness in his chest lighten up just a bit.
Sam was little, shorter than even E.B., but Guy hadn’t anticipated that it would make his heart rate that much faster. Sam’s little chest rose and fell more than once for each of Guy’s breaths, on average. He fit perfectly against Guy, just a warm, fluffy little body, full of life and love.
“Hey, Guy?”
“Yes, Sam?”
“You are perfect snuzzling size.” Sam rubbed his face around in Guy’s fluff to emphasize his point before settling down again. Guy focused on those little breaths, feeling himself start to recede away into sleep.
“Hey, Guy?”
Guy startled out of his doze. “Yes?”
“I can hear your heartbeat,” Sam whispered.
“That’s fantastic,” Guy replied drily.
“It’s, hmm.” He went quiet for long enough that Guy thought he might have abandoned the thought. “It’s beautiful.”
So weird.
“Hey, Guy?”
“Sam, you have one more interruption before I throw you out, decent snuzzler or not. What is it that is so important that I have to know right now?”
Sam shifted. “I…well.” His voice was a little muffled by Guy’s fluff. “Never mind. Goodnight,” Sam said brightly, going limp and relaxed against him.
“Sam. What?” Guy shuffled back to try to make eye contact, but Sam was already wrapped around him as if his life depended on his physically merging with Guy, and any attempt at escape dragged him right along.
“I was just wondering, um. What your plans are from now on.” Sam was still buried in Guy’s scruff, almost bashful. Guy wondered when this self-awareness had started. Since when had Sam cared what Guy thought of him?
“My plans?” Guy asked. He didn’t have any plans. He didn’t have a job, or a home, or anything, and he would have considered that a lot sooner but he’d had a lot on his mind already considering he’d been in jail twice in the past week and had been traveling around as a wanted man with a missing endangered animal. Somewhere between freeing Mr. Jenkins and getting kissed by Michellee, the very real and important issue of what he was going to do had slipped to the back of his mind.
“Yeah,” Sam shrugged as best he could in their awkward position, moving his face out of Guy’s chest so he could speak clearly. “’Ya know, Meepville. That paint watching job come through?”
“I got fired.”
Sam tensed only momentarily at Guy’s tone. “Really? I thought you had that in the bag. Looked like a seasoned professional to me, I can’t believe they’d overlook such talent—”
“Actually, I self-terminated by leaving in the middle of watching a big blue wall,” Guy clarified. “I chose Mr. Jenkins and E.B. over watching paint.” He scoffed quietly. “Never really enjoyed it anyway.”
“Oh.” Sam, predictably, only paused for a moment before launching into another pep talk. “Well, you know—Meepville! City of lights, city of opportunity! Gotta be a zillion jobs around here for a smart Guy like you!” his voice cracked a little.
“Don’t strain yourself,” Guy said drily.
“I—huh?”
“You were right from the beginning. I’m an inventor. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do and it’s what I want to do still.” Sam’s back rose, taking in air as if in preparation for a truly spectacular cheer. “But!” Guy stopped him before he woke up the ladies in the room next door. “I don’t have money, Sam.” Guy finished. “I don’t have a home, I can’t pay the bills, and my dream blew up in my face. I need a real job.”
“Inventing is a real job!” Sam protested. “Inventing is a super real job! Without inventors we wouldn’t have trains, or—or boxes, or green eggs and ham!”
Guy sighed. “It is a real job,” he amended. “I’m just not good at it. So the answer, Sam, to your question, is I don’t know. I don’t know what happens next. I’ve got a roof over my head tonight because I’m mooching off Michellee, and I can’t do that another night. I…I guess I could stay with my parents, but I can’t imagine—”
“You could stay with me,” Sam suggested, in his smallest voice.
“What?”
Sam wiggled his face a little further out of Guy’s scruff, and Guy craned his neck back to look him in the eyes. He was serious, an open book, like the night in the tent. Not smiling or shouting or bouncing off the walls. Bared.
“I said you could stay with me. I don’t have a lot of space but I could make room, and we—we could drive wherever you wanna go! My house has wheels!” Sam’s expression lifted a little, hopeful. “You wouldn’t have to worry about money or anything, not for a little while, and we could hang out all the time, like a sleepover but day after day after—”
Guy coughed, trying to force words from his chest; acceptance, denial, anything. Part of him wanted what Sam was suggesting, he realized. The other part thought it would be stupid to make a commitment to someone like—
“You’re a criminal, Sam,” Guy finally said. He was shocked by how sad he sounded. “What would happen to me?”
“Oh, I’m super good at running from the law. I’m fast.” Sam’s face lit up a little more, false cheer creeping back in.
“Sam, I couldn’t—I couldn’t make a commitment like that.” Guy shook his head. Something in his chest throbbed, and he wondered if it was his heart breaking.
“What if I stop doing jobs?” Sam asked, desperation plain in his voice. “Just for a little? I could move my house and change my name and—”
Sam was willing, Guy realized, to do whatever it took to get Guy to move in with him. And it wasn’t a trick—there was nothing to swindle out of a broke, homeless freelance inventor. Sam was just lonely. Like him.
“Don’t change,” Guy said suddenly.
“Say huh?”
“Stay the same,” the words tumbled out. “I like Sam I Am the way he am.” Sam giggled at that, his little body vibrating. It was so cute.
“I like Guy Am I the way he am too,” he replied.
“I’ll stay with you,” Guy said. Sam started to puff up again for a cheer, and he interrupted hurriedly. “For a bit, you know, at first. While I’m getting my feet back under me. Not permanent.”
Guy’s rambling was cut off by a squeeze from Sam, who had their faces pressed together and was practically shouting in his ear.
“I knew you’d agree! I knew it! You’re the bestest best friend in the whole wide universe!”
“Sam!” Guy laughed.
“We’ll have so much fun! We’ll make dinner, as long as you don’t have to cook it because I don’t have a stove, but we can go to the diner together! Oh! Maybe I can get a job there, d’ya think? I think. Donna loves me. I’m her best customer! I keep her company all day, you know, so basically it would just be the same except she’ll pay me to do it! Maybe you can work at the diner too! While you’re inventing also, y’know? This is going to be the best, most—” Sam squeaked, breath cut off as Guy squeezed him tight. “Oh.” He shimmied a little against the grip—not trying to escape, just testing. “Tighter, please,” he requested.
“You’re weird,” Guy huffed, but did as Sam requested. Sam grunted and squeezed Guy back, humming as he did so. Guy could feel Sam’s little heart beating against his ribcage as they held on in the longest and tightest hug Guy had ever experienced.
When they finally relaxed, it was with a sigh of contentment. Guy felt wrung-out, like all the bad things had been hugged out of him. It was a funny idea; he could feel a relaxed smile on his face.
“You are a seriously good hugger,” Sam murmured into Guy’s scruff.
“Thanks. And now it’s time to sleep,” Guy replied primly, resting his chin on top of Sam’s head. “Good night, Sam.”
“Good night, Guy.” Sam shifted, burrowing into a comfortable position for sleep. He sighed loudly and went limp.
Guy began to drift out of awareness almost as soon as he closed his eyes. It may have been dreams creeping out to drag him under, but just before he fell asleep he swore he heard Sam’s soft little voice one more time.
“Love you, Guy.”