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it’s late, the clock has long since rounded 3am; and, sam doesn’t know how long he will feel like this.
maybe forever.
maybe this is what he deserves.
maybe this is all he will ever get to feel-- a black hole of disgusting, vile, longing and desire.
an expert in wanting things he can’t have, sam is no stranger to this feeling. no stranger to the bile that builds in his throat until he swallows it down with an equally acidic and bitter shot of whiskey. no stranger to staring at the phone, hoping, wishing, praying, it would ring. no stranger to the feeling of loneliness so heavy in the room it surrounds him until he can convince himself it’s something else, anything else.
sam swirls the amber liquid in his glass again, looks out over the city of lost heaven through his frosty window. how is it that he has lived here half his life and still has never known what it means to come back to a home?
sam takes a drink, downs the liquid in one go, then reaches for the bottle to refill his glass. he can already feel his vision blur around the edges. he can already feel his thoughts swirl into something else. memories resurface that he’s tried so long, so hard, to bury. once the glass is full, he takes another drink, gulping it down until it burns. until every time he closes his eyes, he hears phantom laughs of the one person he’s trying so hard to avoid.
sam feels like he closes his eyes for a few minutes, dreams of dialing the number he’s rehearsed over and over, hears the melodic voice of the object of his affection on the other end, dreams he doesn’t feel sick with shame at these thoughts. and truthfully, sam doesn’t realize what he’s done until the phone’s receiver is to his lips and he hears shuffling of fabric and an unclear, “hello?” ring through to his ears.
“paulie.” sam says the name softly, under his breath, like he’s trying to assess if the voice on the other side of the phone is a cruel memory or his friend on the other side.
“sam.” paulie’s voice rings clearer, though through tone alone it was clear he had been asleep. sam stays silent for a moment, just listens to the way paulie’s breath fans over the receiver. “sam? ya there? what’s wrong?” the worry floods paulie’s voice, his beautiful and clear voice, and that’s not what sam wants. sam doesn’t want paulie worried.
“i’m here. m’fine.” sam replies, though now he is speaking out loud, the alcohol pounds in his head and he is regretting his decisions. if he were smart, he’d hang up now. he’d apologize, say he’s drunk, tell him it was an accident, that this can just be forgotten. but sam is everything but smart, so he speaks instead, “i uh, i’m sorry for wakin’ ya. i…” sam’s voice trails off, the alcohol sullies his head, but even sober, he doesn’t think he could choke out the words he truly wants to say.
“ah, can’t sleep?” paulie asks, his voice is lighter, like he’s taunting sam, like he knows the truth. it makes a brief flame of anger flare deep in sam’s chest, it’s irrational, sam knows, but suddenly he’s so pissed paulie had answered at all. the line is silent for a moment, then two, and paulie has never been good with silence so he speaks instead, “i have trouble sleepin’ wit’out you too, ya know.” paulie says, softer, whispers it really.
the anger subsides in sam almost immediately, and that makes him want to be mad. he wants to hang up. he wants.. “i want to sleep next to you.” the words are out of sam’s mouth before he can think better of it. his voice is just a bit slurred, softer than he has ever spoken before. paulie’s breath hitches on the other line, but sam very quickly cuts him off. “but that’s all i wan’ to do.”
the quick correction makes paulie laugh, which makes something horrible, disgusting, wanting, bubble in sam’s throat and again, his mouth is open before his drunk brain can catch up, “and i wan’ to come home to you. home…” sam chokes around the last word. he’s never called his apartment his home. he’s never felt like he’s had one before.
the closest to home sam’s ever been allowed, is when paulie last came over. when both of them drank until the sun went down, laughed and talked, stumbled into bed, kissed, touched, whispered back and forth just like this. sam chokes on a sob as the memory replays the one time the four walls of his apartment prison had been filled with his safest sounds. sam takes another swig of the liquid, and it burns more than the very first one he had had that night.
“home,” paulie echoes the word, soft and small, and again the anger starts to build in sam. “are you drunk, sam?” he asks, and the bitter laugh that escapes sam startles him. sam mutters something paulie doesn’t hear, something that's a cross between thick italian and slurred english.
“sam?”
there’s a moment of silence before sam speaks, “come over.”
“sam?” paulie repeats, with more urgency. “are you drunk?”
sam scoffs, rolls his eyes as if paulie could see him. “are you deaf or somethin’? come over.” he sniffles, chokes down the pleading tone in his words. sam puts down the phone to pick up his cigarette case. he gets a smoke from it, places it between his lips and lights it.
“are ya sure? sammy, i--”
“paulie, if you’re gon’ keep makin’ me repeat myself, then don’t fuckin’ bother, alright?” sam bites the response out, and quickly hangs up his phone. sam takes a deep, long, drag of his cigarette. he blows the cloud from his lips and watches as it turns into nothing. bitter tears sting in the corner of his eyes, but sam just blinks them away.
he’d rather fuel this fantasy, fuel this delusion that he and paulie could be together, could be happy, could be anything more than they’ve always been; than deal with this heavy, disgusting, feeling of enormous desire all alone.
-
and paulie, who has never let sam down, shows up to sam’s apartment just as the clock tolls four times in the night. the quick and urgent pounding on the door shook sam from the sleep that had settled into him, and he sits up on his couch with a start. he sits up, blinks the sleep from his eyes, rubs the back of his hands over them, all before there’s another knock.
“come on now, sammy. do you want me to wake your neighbors? christ.” paulie’s voice calls through sam’s thick door, and truly sam feels like he may be dreaming it.
“i’ll break this door off its damn hinges if you don’t open it, sam.”
“alright, alright. jesus,” sam calls back, though he doesn’t make much of an effort to move at first. a minute passes, and then another, and then sam is getting up and crossing the floor of his apartment. sam undoes both sets of locks and then swings the door open.
paulie is wearing slacks from the day before and a white, wrinkled, button up that has most likely been on paulie’s floor for a week. it’s clears paulie just threw on the very first articles of clothing he could find around his apartment to rush over to sam’s. tragically, that makes sam want more things that he’s not allowed to have.
“sam,” paulie speaks, his voice a bit softer. he holds his hands out like he’s about to touch sam, like he wants to check him over to make sure he’s alright. sam shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and then steps out of the way so that paulie can come in.
“look,” sam starts, his eyes tracking paulie as paulie comes in and crosses the apartment to the kitchen. sam follows him, watches as paulie begins to pour two glasses of water. “i’m sorry for callin’ you out so late. i… i didn’ mean to.”
“the numbers dialed themselves then?” paulie slides the water over to sam, though he doesn’t meet his gaze.
“yeah, something like that.” sam mutters his response. he doesn’t take the water. he instead watches the way paulie walks around his kitchen, his living room, his apartment, until he sits at the couch, like he’s walked this route a million times before.
paulie sits on sam’s couch, exhales and leans his head back. sam is still watching him. there’s that silence again, the one paulie isn’t all that good with.
“sam..” paulie sighs, runs his hands down his tired face. sam swallows, the way paulie says his name always incites a foreign sort of anxiety in sam.
“paulie.” sam answers him. sam’s voice is cautious as he crosses the floor and finally settles on the couch. he sits where he deems to be a safe distance away from paulie, but he doesn’t look at him. he stares at the empty wall space in front of them.
“what’re we doing here?”
“i live here.”
paulie chuckles, but the normally joyous note is drenched in so much sadness that sam barely recognizes it. sam still doesn’t look at him.
paulie puts his hand on the space in between them. sam can see the movement in the corner of his eye. and when sam reaches out to settle his hand right next to paulie’s, sam can blame it on the way the alcohol fuzzes his senses still.
paulie inches his hand closer, until it settles right on top of sam’s. sam’s lips part in a stuttered breath and he allows his eyes to slip closed, but he doesn’t move otherwise.
paulie takes his chances and he moves closer to sam, just barely an inch, but close enough that with his knees spread, they knock against sam’s. at this, sam finally turns his head to look at paulie.
and maybe sam can blame this on the alcohol too, but paulie has never looked more enticing to sam. with his hazel eyes full of sleep and more emotions than sam has ever allowed himself to feel. with his lips turned down in the corners with a gentle frown. with his acne marks, stubble from the day before, and wiry eyebrows. with his hair a little out of place, wavy and thick.
sam presses his knee against paulie’s with intent. paulie squeezes his hand over sam’s. they look at each other, neither trying to blink, as though they’re both trying to memorize everything this moment had to offer for them.
“m’about to do somethin’ i’ll regret.” sam says, mostly to himself. and paulie’s frown turns into something like the ghost of a smile. “do ya have t’ regret it?” he asks, lifting his hand to start to trail up sam’s arm.
sam allows his eyes to leave paulie’s face and track the movement of his hand up his arm. “you’re supposed t’ talk me down, paulie.” sam tells him, pleas with him, really.
paulie curls his hand around to sam’s elbow and grabs it for support. “there ain’t nothin’ to say.” he answers sam, and maybe there’s more truth there than either of them are trying to say right now. so sam does the only thing he knows how to do, he fucks things up.
he allows paulie to bend his elbow and sam is coming closer, leaning into kiss paulie. paulie sighs, like he’s breathing for the first time that night, as he kisses sam back. his hand travels from sam’s elbow up to the back of his neck, and paulie pulls sam even closer.
paulie’s fingers thread themselves into sam’s thick hair, and paulie presses himself as close to sam as he can get in their position like this. paulie’s tongue presses against sam’s lips and they willingly part with a beautiful sigh.
no matter how close the two of them get, it’s not close enough for sam. there’s nothing in this world like paulie’s hands, lips, and the way they know sam like he’s never experienced.
sam’s hands come up to paulie’s waist from their spot on the couch. he frantically pulls at paulie’s shirt, exposing a thin strip of paulie’s stomach. sam allows his fingers to brush over the skin there, and a small whimper bubbles from the back of sam’s throat as paulie’s lips connect with his jaw.
“sam,” paulie whispers against sam’s jaw, his fingers twisting in sam’s hair until another beautiful little whimper falls from his lips. “want you.”
paulie’s words settle so deeply in sam that his mind clears so suddenly and he has seemingly never been more sober. god, what was he doing?
“can’t.” sam mutters and pushes away from paulie as if his skin burned him. “we can’t keep fuckin’ doin’ this shit, paulie.”
“you started all’a this, sam? you can’t keep startin’ shit like this and then pushin’ me away. don’t you feel like shit doin’ that?” paulie’s frustration is clear in his voice. he feels a flash of anger as he settles back on sam’s couch. “it’s fuckin’ tirin’, sammy.”
sam doesn’t look at paulie. he can’t. he wouldn’t even if he could, though. it does feel like shit. it does hurt. it feels worse than the nasty, revolting, desire. this subsequent rejection, this feeling of emptiness.
“if it’s so fuckin’ tirin’ then why do you still come?” sam asks paulie, in that kicked-puppy-pitiful voice. and god, he was pitiful, wasn’t he?
“because i fuckin’ care about you, sam.” paulie answers him. paulie can feel himself roll his eyes. “is that so hard to believe?” he sets his jaw and turns his head to the window.
there’s that silence again. the one that feels suffocating. the one that makes sam feel like putting two in his head.
paulie puts his arm over the back of the couch and sam leans back, just barely allowing his back to rest against paulie’s arm. he’s got to stop ending up like this. he’s got to draw the line somewhere, but with paulie it’s so hard to tell where paulie ends and sam begins. maybe sam has always been nothing at all without paulie.
sam closes his eyes. the numbing buzz in his head has very quickly turned into a headache.
paulie wordless hands sam the glass of water from the table aside the couch, and sam wordlessly drinks from it.
paulie watches sam take a drink, and a sadness too big for words settles over him. sam will always be too proud to allow them to have this, paulie knows this. he’s not stupid. but the heart wants what it wants, right? and paulie, he wants..
“i want to sleep next to you.” paulie says, before he can think better of it. his sentiment a mirror to sam’s earlier drunken confession.
sam hands paulie back the glass of water, then settles against paulie’s arm again. paulie puts his hand on sam’s shoulder, pulling him closer, until sam’s stiff shoulders relax enough for his head to lean against paulie’s shoulder.
sam doesn’t speak, it’s easier for him to pretend he hadn’t heard paulie at all. it’s easier for him to pretend he’s already asleep, than to face the fact that he’s willingly laying next to paulie like this.
sam and paulie are walking a fine line, staying in the grey area between expectations and reality. and they’re not blind to it. it would be easier if they were. but they aren’t.
“i’m not the one, paulie.” sam whispers, his voice nearly cracks in half as an inescapable wave of emotion crashes over him. “but i-“ and this time his voice does crack, “i want to sleep next to you. i want to come home to ya. be close to ya. i.. fuck. fuck!” sam’s voice grows an edge, and sam squeezes his eyes shut again.
paulie squeezes his hand on sam’s shoulder, pulling sam even closer to him. sam sighs, a broken, weighted, noise. paulie cuts him off, “we don’t got to speak, sammy.”
sam turns his head toward paulie, and with his deep inhale, he can smell paulie. cigarettes, illegal booze, faint aftershave, even a hint of his own cologne lingers on paulie’s collar.
sam feels sick.
feels like the fires of hell are already licking at his heels.
feels shame, disgust, and every emotion in between.
sam doesn’t move.
sam falls asleep next to paulie.
and paulie holds sam. sips at the water, stares at the blank wall ahead of him, until sleep comes for him as well.
and when the sun finally peaks over the horizon, and sam wakes up from his fitful sleep, he will kick paulie out, and they’ll both pretend this never happened, until the next 3am phone call.
which paulie will answer.
every time, he’ll answer.