by Aiden Bates
Though looking back on it all, he had always been; Sam was the feeler between the two, always crying when they watched movies with sad parts, was the first to try and defend his friends with words or try to stand up for what he thought was just in the world. Adam had always been the brains of them—keeping calm amidst the chaos, thinking things through for the group and helping to lead them through times of strife.
Still, Sam could feel the way that his heart was still lodged somewhere in the pit of his stomach, somewhere lower than it should have been, where he could feel it beating painfully and reminding him of all he lost—nearly a decade of history with someone, someone that he had genuinely thought he was going to grow old alongside, and the death of a relationship that had once made him sigh with joy and smile from ear to ear. His grief was still present, his mental state was still in shambles, and while talking with Adam about the good old days was a refreshing distraction, it was only that—a distraction.
And exhausting to continue, Sam admitted to himself as he polished off his pho and set his empty bowl on the bedside table. They had only spoken for a brief amount of time, considering, but he felt utterly drained of every reserve of energy that he may have had. He slumped against the pillows, and he must have looked as tired as he felt, because Adam gave him one of those soft smiles that had only ever been for him as he picked up their empty bowls and stood.
“Here, I’ll get these taken care of, then you can rest.” Adam said, turning to leave.
“Could you, umm,” Sam faltered in asking. He had asked enough of his friend as it was, he knew, but there was still a niggling fear in the back of his mind.
Adam stopped and turned to face him, his face patient but expectant. Sam flushed with embarrassment and shame all at once but still managed to find his voice, though only after glancing away from Adam.
“Could you stay with me?” Sam finally said, though realized that he had to elaborate—his earlier actions hardly painted that innocent question with a positive color. “Not…not like anything more than just friends, but,” he chewed on his lip, “I just…I just don’t want to be left alone tonight.”
He chanced looking up at Adam, though found himself surprised when Adam looked at him in confusion—while not necessarily a negative response, he had thought he had properly articulated himself.
“I wasn’t gonna just leave you be, y’know.” Adam said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Just lemme take care of this stuff, and I’ll be right back, all right?”
Sam gave him a nod, and Adam left to take their bowls to the kitchen. He trained his hearing as best he could on his retreating footsteps, trying to grasp onto the knowledge that Adam was still in the house. He knew, logically, that it was incredibly silly to do, as Adam owned the place, but it didn’t change the fact that the drop was making him experience a strange kind of anxiety—the kind where his mind was operating on some odd level of object permanence, where if he was left alone in a room his thoughts swarmed him like vultures on a roadside corpse in the desert.
From what he knew of Omegas experiencing a drop, the worst of them lasted a week—granted, that was only referring to the drop itself and not the normal emotional fallout of a relationship, but that this would not be forever. He had to repeat that truth to himself like a mantra: this was not his forever. Even still, he knew the statistics: Omegas that were forced to go through a drop had a better than likely chance of committing suicide—or at the very least, injuring themselves in the process—and the knowledge was doing him no favors. On the contrary, it only served to feed into his fear that if he was left alone that something would happen to him, that he would go and do something foolish that could potentially have disastrous results.
A sudden fluttering in his stomach pulled him out of his reverie. It was his sweet, unborn child not developed enough to kick just yet, at least, he didn’t think so, but grown just enough that Sam could feel his child’s life there. He pulled his shirt up, just enough that the gentle, almost nonexistent swell of his belly poked out. Slowly, he cupped his hand along the curve, his thumb stroking the skin as though he were trying to soothe the baby that way. It was silly. He was fairly certain that his child couldn’t feel what he was doing on his own skin, but the tactile comfort was enough to help ground him. His thoughts were still in a dark place, and he still felt very much like an old stuffed animal that had all of its stuffing ripped out of it, but this…this was enough to keep him from completely breaking, he realized.
The fluttering stopped and had really only lasted for a moment or two, but it was enough for him to anchor himself on his own. He still craved company, still felt safer being with someone than not, but this was enough for him to even out his breathing, even as his eyes welled up in tears all over again. He looked up, blinking away the watery blur of unshed tears; he realized with a start that Adam was there, leaning against the doorway with his arms folded casually over his chest, clad in his pajamas. He must have changed after taking their things to the sink. Adam had a soft, strangely proud smile on his face, though Sam couldn’t divine what was making him look that way.
“Sorry. I just didn’t want to interrupt if there was a moment happening there.” Adam said, smiling. That didn’t surprise Sam. Adam had always been gracious, and it was one of the many things that he loved about him. Appreciated, his mind hastily corrected itself, and he couldn’t help but be glad that he’d managed to keep his mouth shut. “Is the baby kicking?”
“No, no,” Sam reassured him, wiping at his eyes, mentally cursing his fried nerves for the umpteenth time for leaving him in such a state. “I just sorta…” he shrugged. “Felt the baby, I guess.” He smoothed his hand over his stomach one last time before tugging his shirt back down. “The little one isn’t big enough to kick, I don’t think, but I can feel whenever they move.”
“They?” Adam asked as he stepped toward the bed, taking a seat on the free space by Sam’s knees. “You think it’s more than one?”
While the thought certainly hadn’t occurred to Sam, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility—particularly fertile Omegas and Alphas were known to birth more than one baby for their pregnancies—it was unlikely that Sam had more than one for how little he was showing.
“Nah, that doesn’t seem likely, but I won’t rule it out.” Sam replied, shaking his head. “I just don’t know what the baby’s gender is yet.” He gave a shrug. “And I know that a lot of parents get that…that feeling that their baby will be a boy or a girl, and maybe I’ll get that feeling later on, too, but,” he sank into the covers a little more, “I’m just trying to plan for both in my head.”
“I think it’ll be a girl,” Adam said with a firm nod, as if he already knew with absolute certainty.
“You’re strangely confident about that,” Sam retorted, though he was smiling.
A daughter wouldn’t be so bad. He’d be completely out of his depth, but he knew, in his heart of hearts, that it wouldn’t matter what his baby was born as, as long as they were happy and healthy.
“Call it gut instinct.” Adam said, still smiling confidently. “But even if I’m wrong about that,” he continued, his smile softening, “I know, without a doubt in my mind, that you’re going to be the best damn parent in the world for that baby.”
“Thank you,” Sam murmured earnestly, swallowing heavily around the emotion that clogged his throat.
Adam looked like he wanted to say more—even went so far as to open his mouth—but closed it again and simply smiled. Sam had wanted to ask what it was that was on his mind, but when he opened his mouth to speak, a wide yawn escaped him instead. Adam chuckled at the sight.
“All right you—move over, yeah?” Adam said, leaning on his side to splay along the bed, lightly nudging Sam in his side. “I know that it’s only, like, two or so in the afternoon, but you’ve had one hell of a day.” He lounged comfortably once Sam scooted to give him ample room, though Sam noted that he stayed on top of the blankets. “And I’m feelin
g like a nap is in order for the both of us.”
“Is that in your professional medical opinion?” Sam said, still scrubbing at his eyes in spite of his smile.
“I’m not a doctor and you know that,” Adam said, snickering as he settled on the bed beside him.
“You don’t want to get under the blanket?” Sam asked quietly after a long moment of them lying beside one another.
Sam could feel Adam’s warmth—he was always a walking furnace—even through the blankets, and his scent was still there, comforting him but still there was enough of a barrier between them that he was acutely aware of the layers that separated them. The part of him—the admittedly large part of him—that was still crying out for comfort and to feel someone against him to fight against the emptiness still felt hollow, even with Adam as close as he was, but Sam still didn’t want to pressure his friend. Regardless of what he was feeling, either for the Alpha or just what the drop was forcing him to experience, he felt enough guilt for what he had already pushed upon his friend. He didn’t want to make things worse, and though he had already slipped up and caved to his weakness, he refused to try and beg for more than what he was emotionally going to be able to handle—him or Adam. He had to do better for the both of them.
“Not for a nap.” Adam replied with a chuckle, bringing his arm around Sam’s blanketed form. “I’d never get up if I crawled under the blanket, you know me.”
Sam was grateful for the white lie. While it was true that Adam was something of a deep sleeper when he was at his most comfortable, Sam wasn’t naive enough to not know that his earlier behavior had contributed to this…was it a divide if it was a boundary that they had always had? He wasn’t sure, and he was too heartsick to be able to discern it at the moment.
“I know you’re a blanket hoarder.” Sam grumbled around another yawn, playing along with the little half truth for the out that it gave the both of them. “You like to hog the bed when you get comfortable.”
“You wound me with such accusations,” Adam mumbled, clearly already beginning to drift off, his eyes already closed. “I’ll have to punish you later if you keep it up.”
“By punish, you mean…?” Sam whispered, his heart hammering in his chest of its own volition.
Adam cracked an eye open and stared at him for a long, atrociously intense moment where Sam thought his heart would beat out of his chest. Adam’s lip curled into a smirk, and Sam had to remind himself that Adam didn’t want to push things further—and he didn’t either—while Sam was feeling like this, and still unsure of how he really felt for Adam.
“I’ll put all your mugs on the top shelf of the cabinets,” Adam said with a laugh, closing his eye and nuzzling into the pillow beneath his head.
“Asshole,” Sam muttered around a soft laugh, his body settling beside Adam for a much needed rest.
Even as his body settled down, Sam was slow to fall asleep, listening to Adam’s rhythmic breathing even out as he had drifted off fairly quickly. His mind was a jumble of thoughts and wants and needs that all contradicted themselves, and as much as he was glad that he wasn’t left alone for such a thing, he was frustrated that he couldn’t sort through all of what he was feeling.
He wanted to belong to someone—someone that would be good to him and his baby—but the thought of intimacy and closeness with someone else, barring Adam because it was Adam, made him freeze with fear. He wanted security with someone, he wanted to not be alone but even entertaining the notion of someone getting close to him made his stomach fill with dread. He was needy and numb all at once, and the contradictions in his own heart just left him feeling bereft of comfort, of solace.
Still, he found a sort of quiet in the way that he could nestle up close to Adam and feel his warmth. Adam not being under the blanket with him was likely a good thing, he quietly admitted to himself; the warmth that Adam radiated was pleasant, just enough that it could soothe Sam’s aching heart without becoming overbearing in its intensity. It felt comforting, familiar, and even if he couldn’t completely calm himself of all of his woes, or even lessen his burdens, feeling his friend beside him was still nice enough.
8
A Step Towards Okay
Adam slept about as well as someone could, considering the confrontations he had been privy to with Dustin earlier in the day, though he was grateful that he had truly only napped for an hour or so. When he opened his eyes it was still light out, a feat for a nap in the middle of a winter day. Carefully, mindful of Sam sleeping beside him, he fished his phone out of his pocket, tapping at the power button to display the screen. Though he flinched at the sudden brightness of the LED display, he still read the time—four thirty.
A good cat nap, he decided as he pocketed his phone once more. After a few moments of checking to make sure moving wouldn’t jostle Sam into waking, Adam finally moved again, easing himself out of the bed and padding his way out to the hallway. As he carefully closed the door most of the way, he glanced over at the armchair he’d moved in the room to sit and eat with Sam. He made a mental note for himself to move it back into the old storage room he’d been working on turning into a study as he made his way down the stairs. His throat felt dry, likely due to not having drunk anything that he usually liked—or at least, not having drunk the normal versions of things he liked, he amended with a grimace. He was fine with having decaf coffee or tea with Sam—he needed to not drink caffeine because of the baby, after all—but that didn’t mean he was just going to quit drinking the things that he enjoyed the most all the time.
Stepping into the kitchen, he eyed the refrigerator, licking his lips eagerly at the thought of the cold brew coffee he had in there. He opened the fridge, rummaging around in it in search of the container, his eagerness turning to confusion when he couldn’t find it. He must have used the last of it and hadn’t realized. Though he grumbled, he settled on brewing himself some tea instead. It was a rich enough taste without having to go through the trouble of making coffee, he decided, getting the tea bags together and setting his kettle on the stove.
While his kettle boiled, he moved over to the dry erase board he had set up in his kitchen, intent on writing out a note for himself to buy more cold brew coffee when he spotted a note that wasn’t in his handwriting—‘Call me when you get a chance —Arie’ was scrawled in neat cursive.
Now was as good a time as any, Adam noted to himself as he pulled his phone out again and dialed her number. He pressed the receiver end of his phone to his ear, stealing a glance up the stairway to the doorway leading to Sam’s room. He looked back down and moved into the living room as he heard the call pick up.
“Adam?” Aranea said over the phone, her tone fairly urgent.
“Arie—just got your message.” Adam said, plopping unceremoniously into the overstuffed armchair that he had in the living room. “Something up?”
“How’s Sam doing?” She asked.
“Sleeping, for the moment,” Adam replied, craning his neck and straining his hearing to see if he could hear Sam moving around—or his kettle beginning to whistle. Since neither of those things was happening, he returned his focus to the conversation. “He’s…he’s not in the best way, but I don’t have to tell you that.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Aranea said, and he could imagine her pursing her lips in that way she did when she was displeased about something. “Has he…” there was a pause, and it seemed like she was choosing her words carefully. She must be worried—she was rarely one to think before she spoke when she was around friends. “How’s his neck doing?”
“It didn’t seem to bother him—at least, not physically,” Adam said, frowning. “I haven’t really looked at it since you bandaged it, though.”
“Just as well,” She said with a sigh. “Unless he was bleeding through it, there’s really no need to go changing it until, like, tomorrow.” There was another pause. “He hasn’t tried anything since, though? No stunts like the mark being torn off?”
Adam knew what she w
as trying to really ask—did Sam actively try to hurt himself? He couldn’t find it in him to blame her. From what they’d all been taught about the drop when Omegas break their bond and how adversely it affected them. It was the biggest reason that they had all been so worried about Sam from the moment that this had all started.
“He hasn’t tried hurting himself.” Adam said with a soft sigh. He heard Aranea let out a relieved breath, and he hesitated before adding, “That’s not to say that he hasn’t been acting…odd, but he hasn’t tried to harm himself. I don’t think that he will.”
“Odd?” Aranea spoke up, and Adam could practically hear her eyebrow quirking. “What do you mean by that, exactly?”
He paused in answering, unsure of whether or not he even had the right to disclose exactly what had happened. Sure, he was technically the, ‘injured party’ though he was hardly hurt by what Sam’s drop had pushed him to do, but that hardly meant that he had license to drag Sam for it.
“He’s suffering,” Adam finally said after a moment more of thinking it over. “And he was looking for something to make it hurt a little less—”
“Did he try to put the moves on you?” Aranea cut him off, and Adam had to bite back a curse at her observational skills.
“That’s…that’s putting it strongly, Arie.” Adam finally said, mulling over whether or not he was going to come clean about it. “He asked for me to help him forget. Don’t blame him for that, though.”
“I would never.” Aranea agreed. “We’ve heard the horror stories of what a drop does to an Omega. I’m just sorry that it came to this.” She let out a sigh. “Though honestly? We all kinda thought it would be you two in the end.”
