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Ren was just swinging from tree to tree happily. Like he had no care in the world. He liked having so mch alone time, it helped him think. Especially hanging amd swinging from the trees. He had a big grin as he did so, perfectly calm and happy.
Ren’s fingers dug into the bark, his grip effortless after years of practice. The rope bridge swayed beneath him as he landed with a soft thud, but he barely noticed, his focus was on the distant figure sitting cross-legged by the riverbank. Sam.
Sam wasn’t supposed to be here. Ren had specifically chosen this stretch of the forest because it was always empty, no hikers, no foragers, just the occasional deer or fox slipping through the undergrowth. But there Sam was, hunched over a notebook, scribbling furiously, completely oblivious to the fact that Ren had just dropped out of the trees like some kind of feral raccoon.
Ren hesitated. He could swing back into the canopy and disappear, Sam wouldn’t even know he’d been there. But something about the way Sam’s brow furrowed in concentration, the way his fingers smudged graphite across the page, made Ren pause. He’d never seen Sam look so… absorbed.
He took a step forward, deliberately snapping a twig underfoot. Sam startled, his head whipping up, ink-stained fingers freezing mid-sentence. For a second, they just stared at each other, Ren with his arms crossed, Sam blinking like he’d been caught stealing cookies.
“You,” Sam said finally, snapping the notebook shut, “are ridiculously quiet.”
Ren grinned, the kind of grin that showed too many teeth and made most people instinctively take a step back. Sam didn't. Instead, he tilted his head, studying Ren like he was a particularly interesting creature that refused to run off like most creatures do..
"You're not supposed to be here," Ren said, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. The tree branch creaked a bit.
Sam shrugged, flipping his notebook open again like he hadn't just been caught in the middle of something private. "Neither are you," he said, tapping his pencil against the page. "Unless you’re secretly a forest spirit. Which, honestly, wouldn’t surprise me."
Ren snorted. He crouched down beside Sam, peering over his shoulder. The pages were filled with sketches, not of the river or the trees, but of people. Faces Ren recognized from town, frozen in moments of laughter or concentration. One was even of him, mid-swing, hair wild, limbs loose like he was made of wind.
"You draw?" Ren asked, nudging the notebook with his elbow. A smile was back on his face, one of those big crazy nice ones he always had.
Sam flicked the notebook shut again, but not fast enough Ren caught the edge of a sketch he didn't recognize, something dark and jagged, entirely unlike the soft lines of the portraits. "Sometimes," Sam muttered, tucking the pencil behind his ear. "When I can't think in words."
Ren leaned back on his palms, tilting his face toward the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves. "You think in statistics and risks most of the time, don't you?" He'd seen Sam in the library, surrounded by open textbooks, fingers writing out random scenarios on the table like Morse code.
Sam blinked, then laughed, a short, surprised sound. "Yeah. But numbers don't help when, " He stopped abruptly, rolling the pencil between his fingers.
"When?" Ren pressed, nudging Sam's knee with his own.
"Nothing." Sam exhaled, long and slow, before reopening the notebook to a fresh page. "It's just easier to draw the mess in my head than... Think in words. You know" Sam was being Sam again. Closed off. For good reason too. It was hard for him to forget his late husband. But Ren still stayed by his side.
Ren didn’t push. They knew that look, the way Sam’s shoulders tensed, the way his fingers curled just a little too tightly around the pencil. Instead, he plucked a leaf from the ground, twirling it between his fingers before letting it flutter into the river. The current caught it immediately, carrying it downstream in a slow, wobbling spiral.
Sam watched the leaf too, his grip on the pencil loosening. “You ever feel like that?” he asked suddenly, nodding toward the water. “Just… carried away. No say in where you end up.”
Ren stretched his legs out, toes skimming the damp earth. “Nah,” he said, grinning. “I’m more like the rocks. Stubborn. Impossible to move.”
Sam huffed a laugh, but his eyes stayed on the water. “Must be nice.”
The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable, but Ren could feel the weight of it pressing against his ribs. He knocked his shoulder against Sam’s, just hard enough to make him sway. “Draw me something,” he said. Sam paused, but them smiled and started doodling again. Drawing was easy, not to mention calming.
Once done, he showed Ren the drawing. For once Sam was smiling genuinely. Ren beamed at it before cuddling against Sam as if he owned that spot in Sam's side.
Sam hadn’t expected Ren to lean into him like that, warm, solid, and suddenly there, as if he’d always belonged in the curve of Sam’s arm. The sketchbook wobbled in his lap, pencil skittering to the ground. Ren didn’t seem to notice, or care, her cheek pressed against Sam’s shoulder like a cat claiming sunlight.
“You’re heavy,” Sam muttered, but his fingers curled reflexively around the edge of the sketchbook, holding it steady. Ren’s hair smelled like pine resin and something faintly metallic, like the air before a storm.
“Liar,” Ren said, voice muffled against Sam’s sleeve. “I’m basically a twig.” she shifted, just enough to peer up at Sam, their grin lopsided. “You drew me with wings.”
Sam glanced down at the sketch, a quick, messy thing of Ren mid-swing, but with great, feathered wings unfurling behind them, catching the light. “Metaphorically,” he said, too quickly.
Ren’s laugh vibrated through him. “Sure.” He plucked the pencil from the grass, twirling it between his fingers before tapping it against Sam’s knee. “Draw me for real. No wings. Not metaphorically or whatever." Sam stared for a solid few minutes. Then he sighed with a smile. "Fine, but you're not getting another." "Suurre, righttt" Ren said sarcastically. She had a raised eyebrow. Sam sighed.
He definitely was going to draw them again sometime anyway.