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He tried, he really did.
It was easiest in the wintertime- when his husband wasn't spending the day down in the mines restocking on ores, he was there to help with whatever he might need. He guided him without judgement or pity, taking him through the steps, teaching him what most people absorbed naturally throughout their life. He knew the basics, obviously- living with his mom for as long as he had, it was natural he got some of the information through osmosis by proximity. But he never knew just how much work it took.
He sucked at cleaning.
Or rather, he generally sucked at maintaining a household.
Sam stared down at what had become his greatest enemy since his marriage- a lumpy pile of fitted sheets in the middle of the mattress. The weather had finally stopped toeing the line between warmth and heat. Out front, somewhere in the fields and under the relentless semi-tropical sunlight, his husband would be planting hundreds of tiny blueberry and pepper seeds. He would need a nice cold shower, a filling meal; not more labor. The Farmer didn't mind, he never did, but that seemingly-endless supply of energy had to stop at some point.
Hesitantly, he disentangled a sheet from the pile- primary blue with a tiled music note pattern, a wedding gift from his dad. Laying it out flat, he stared down at it. His husband had shown him the steps a billion times before. He could do this.
He carefully folded it in half, tucking the opposing corners into each other. He went slowly, smoothing and pulling to ensure there were no wrinkles.
As he'd grown up, his freedom from household responsibilities had been a blessing, something that showed how much his mom cared for him. She washed and folded his laundry; she did his dishes; some days, she would come into his room and tidy it up, leaving his loose papers bearing fragments of lyrics and melodies in a neat pile on his bed, his carpet vacuumed, and his floor mopped. It was because she loved him, so, so much, that she would cook all his meals and make snacks for him, that she would buy him new shampoo and deoderant and cologne without him even asking, like she kept a schedule of when he needed what. And she did the same for his dad.
Sam had asked him about it once, when he was maybe thirteen or fourteen. Kent had gotten this strange look on his face, both angry and sad.
"Before your mom met me, the guy she was dating... wasn't nice to her." They had been sitting in one of the smaller parks in Zuzu City, near the gynecologist- his mom had lost two babies since she'd had Sam, and she was pregnant again. He knew he wasn't supposed to know about it. "He demanded a lot from her. If everything wasn't perfect, he would hit her, but she couldn't leave."
"Why?"
"She was engaged to him, and they lived together."
"Then how did you meet Mom?" He remembered the sense of dread that had condensed in his center, seeming to drag his very soul down.
He folded the top third of the fitted sheet down. Smoothing. Pulling.
"I was a part-time janitor at your mom's job when we were in high school. I met her before your mom met that guy," he explained. "She was a trainee at a jewelry store. We were friends for a long time, even after her boyfriend made her drop out of college." Kent had gone quiet. "He broke her arm one day." Sam knew about that, at least. She had a long, pink scar that ran up half the length of her forearm, and she had told him she had a metal plate keeping her bones together. "It was because she was stuck in traffic, and the groceries weren't put up when he got back from work. He left to go somewhere and she called me to get her. I took her to the hospital, then went and packed all her things. She was scared to leave him, but I moved all her stuff to our apartment, because I refused to let her go back. She was supposed to get her own place eventually, but she never left. And then you happened." Kent had smiled, pulling him into a sideways hug.
"What about her mean boyfriend?" Sam had clung to him, fear crawling up his back like a swarm of centipedes.
Kent had kissed the top of his head. "Your mom and I took him to court. I had to pay a lot of money, but I hired someone to find his previous girlfriends, and a few of them came to testify against them. He did a lot of bad things to a lot of people. He's going to be in jail for a very, very long time."
She loved him. And she was scared. Not of Kent- even after he got back and had screaming nightmares, or terrified anger triggered by seemingly mundane things, she never flinched, never cried, only showed concern and comfort. But she was still scared. It would be years later that he would learn what PTSD was.
He folded the bottom third of the sheet up and over the other, creating a long rectangle. Smoothing. Pulling.
Someone had hurt his mom. And she had tried so, so hard to make sure he knew he was cared for. He wasn't a smart guy by any means, but he suspected her parents hadn't been great- he never knew them. The only grandparents he'd ever had were Memaw and Papa. It was a complicated thing that made his chest tighten up sometimes. His mom had loved him so much that when he was finally ready to step out into the world, he was completely clueless. He knew how to make toast, how to fry an egg, how to tell if milk was bad. He didn't know how to make rice or how to clean a stove. He didn't know that you only needed a little dish soap to wash a dish. He knew how to change a lightbulb and mop a floor and how to dust properly (he had learned that at work) but not how to unclog a drain or that you needed to clean the lint trap in a dryer after every load.
Sebastian had told him once about data when he was in his game development phase. About how, when a computer uses more memory than is available for a digital "stack" of some kind of countable thing, it "overflows" and resets completely at 0. His mom had somehow loved him so much that she caused a stack overflow error, and had spoiled him. Neglected him.
Sam felt a little guilty for being bitter about it. Sebastian and Abigail had always had it worse than him. Abby's dad had always been more invested in his store than he was in her, or in Caroline- her mom had gotten better over the years, but her resentment would spike into shouting matches or, worse, days of silent seething, with Abby stuck in the middle. The only thing that got her parents to unite and agree was if she acted out, if she threw things and screamed over them. It got her parents to go to couple's therapy, and they were happier, cared about her more, but rage and malice were still her default whenever she was upset. And Sebastian... a lot of it stemmed from how he reacted to his mom getting remarried after his dad had died. And how he reacted to Maru's appearance in his home. But even then, he was just a kid, a tiny human who didn't know how to deal with his feelings yet. Robin had tried to mend the rift at first, but that had just led to arguing, and eventually she switched tactics, letting him have his space. But the space became a rift, and then a gorge, and then a canyon. And now, Sebastian had been isolating himself for so long that any kind of care from Robin outside of small, quiet affections made him deeply uncomfortable.
Sam? He was just Sam, who was kind of stupid and impulsive and care-free, who didn't know how to function and felt guilty, like it was his fault, or felt guilty for knowing it was Jodi's fault, because she didn't mean to do this to him.
He folded the sheet in thirds again, one, then the other, and the perfectly folded sheet stared back up at him.
Sebastian and Abby would need someone like his Farmer. Someone patient, someone who loved him as much as his mom did, if in a different way. Someone who would show them how to navigate the obstacles their childhood had left in their way, and would love both the successes and the failures (He still needed to get Robin to look over the small patch of charring in the laundry room. And ask for a quote on a new dryer. The Farmer had erected a clothesline from scratch in less than an hour after he'd helped put out the fire).
He moved the folded sheet to the side, anx got to work on the next one.
When he finished, he turned, stack in hand, and let out a startled yelp when he saw the Farmer, covered in dirt, leaning against the doorframe. "I- babe, how long have you been standing there?" He balanced the stack on one arm, placing a hand on his chest to mimic terror. It worked, and his husband laughed.
"About an hour. You were really focused." Sam crossed over to their dresser, and as he began putting the laundry away, the Farmer joined him, simply watching with a small smile. "I could practically hear the gears turning in your head. Are you okay?" He placed a hand on the small of Sam's back.
"Yeah, I'm good." He knelt slightly to kiss his husband's sweaty forehead. It was reddened from sun exposure. He might buy him a wide-brimmed hat. "Just thinking." There was a brief lull, and he finished, closing the drawer and turning to pull the Farmer into a hug. "What do you want for dinner?"