Work Text:
Sam is in the middle of impersonating Kate at her 25th birthday party (“Someone just handed me a tab with a snake playing the flute on it. Is that supposed to be a selling point?”) when Fred’s order arrives. Tea, nearly full to the brim, with a complimentary cookie sitting next to it.
Fred immediately puts the cookie on Sam’s saucer. He’s learnt, by now, that it saves time.
Sam beams at him, distracted from his story.
Fred smiles back, until something outside the window catches his eye. Sam turns to see an unbelievably handsome man walk through the door.
And, suddenly, Fred’s standing up, being bear-hugged by the Adonis, choking out a “Hi Shane,” and looking incredibly flustered.
It takes Sam about 3 seconds to decide that the best strategy is aggressive politeness. The kind that says: I can let my guard down, because you’re not a threat. Because my boyfriend’s not attracted to 6 foot guys with muscles and stubble. Right?
He barely needs a strategy, because Shane makes small talk for about 30 seconds before going to the counter, buying a protein shake, and walking out the door.
Fred stares after him.
Sam eats his sugar cookie in one bite.
“Uh,” Fred says, turning back to Sam. “Sorry. That was an ex.”
“Oh,” Sam says. “I thought maybe it was your uncle. Or a friend of your parents. Or one of your primary school teachers.”
Fred doesn’t give him a smile or a retort. He looks down at his untouched teacup, curls his fingertips over the table, like he’s hanging on, and says, “Sam, can we go home?”
Sam can deal with jealousy. He has to. It lives inside him, eats him up from the inside. Makes him sharp and fragile and impulsive, but still, he lives with it. What he can’t deal with is the fact that Fred looks sad. Like Sam is a choice he resigned himself to long ago.
“You can,” Sam says. “I’m staying.”
Fred stares at him for a second, before grabbing his bag and walking out without a word.
Sam drinks his too-hot tea, feeling it burn as it goes down. He drags his tongue across the roof of his mouth until he can’t focus on anything but the pain bouncing between them.
It’s hard not to think about Fred, especially when he doesn’t turn up to dinner that night. It’s been 5 hours since he last ate, must have been, and when Sam closes his eyes he can see him laying face-down on that hospital floor, feels the same heartsick feeling he felt then, Why can’t you love anything properly? You do too little, you do too much. You do both and it fucking kills him.
If he can’t get the balance right, then he’s going to start choosing too much every time.
He goes to the kitchen and starts piling up a plate.
Fred’s wrapped himself up in about 8 blankets at this point, so it takes a little while to untangle himself when he hears the knock at his door.
“Fred,” comes Sam’s voice, a second later. “I have food. You don’t have to talk to me. Just take the food.”
Fred kicks off his last blanket, almost drops the laptop on the floor in the process, catches it at the last moment and puts it on the bedside table.
About eight more knocks come in quick succession.
Fred gets out of bed, almost tripping over the laptop cord in the process.
“…I swear, if you have a hypo just to spite me-”
The door opens to reveal Fred in his PJs, holding a packet of Wotsits. He has fluorescent orange crumbs all over his hands, and one that somehow ended up right in the middle of his cheek, and Sam thinks I love you. I don’t care if you’re half in love with your ex. I love you.
He’s a little too caught up to realise-
“You know I keep snacks in here, right?”
“I…forgot.” Sam says, feeling colossally stupid.
They stand there for a second.
“But I’ll take the pasta,” Fred says. “And the company, if you’re offering.”
“Yes,” Sam says immediately, without really thinking about it.
Fred’s mouth quirks, and Sam doesn’t think he’s ever been so relieved to see him smile.
“So,” Sam says, playing with the edge of one of the blankets as they sit on the bed. “It’s possible that I overreacted.” He is trying very hard to be an adult about this. “He’s your ex. People feel things for their exes.”
“I don’t feel anything for him,” Fred says hurriedly, through a mouthful of pasta.
“Ok,” Sam says, feeling considerably brighter, “but if you’re attracted to him-”
“I’m not.”
“Ok,” Sam says, slightly more dubiously.
“He wasn’t a good boyfriend,” Fred says. “Or person, really. And I’d done a pretty good job of forgetting about him. So him showing up out of the blue, acting like we were friends? It was kind of surreal.”
Sam takes a breath, rethinking the day.
“Really wish I’d told him to fuck off, now.”
Fred snorts. “Really glad you didn’t. We can’t afford to get banned from another coffee shop.”
Sam tests the waters, nudging his elbow against Fred’s stomach.
“What happened?” he asks, playing with the corner of the blanket again. “Between you two?”
“Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow,” Fred says, not wanting to waste another minute of the day on Shane.
“Ok,” says Sam, curling up, pulling Fred’s arm around his shoulders while Fred struggles to keep the plate of pasta upright on his lap.
“You comfortable?” he asks dryly.
“No,” Sam says. “This is an insane number of blankets. You’re like one of those baby chicks that need a heat lamp all the time.” They’ve been watching a lot of nature documentaries, lately.
Fred kicks off one of the blankets, puts the pasta on the bedside table, and curls up on his side, pulling Sam’s hand around his waist.
And Sam practices being a heat lamp.