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nikfehu · 19 days ago

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All Bark, No Bite

An argument that boils down to what they had both been avoiding.

Nothing a little communication can't fix.

Right?

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ding dong.

lovely? writing on their main? for redacted?

someone call the press.

or press the link to read on ao3...you know, either or (^///^)

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They were staring him down from his doorway.

Sam kept a firm grip on his keys—indentations in progress as they pressed into his palm.

“Darlin’—”

He paused, clenching his teeth before exhaling and using his free hand to push his hair from his face. It wasn’t exactly as simple as springing it on him as he thought he’d made clear, but Darlin’ was a professional at throwing themself at walls.

Sam had never once thought he’d become one of them.

His gaze slipped down the expansion of their newly exposed neck. He swallowed once, knowing that if the two of them didn’t at least broach the subject, it would only fester. Hell, perhaps it already had been. If only he could figure out how to do it without the threat of accidentally prodding at either of their wounds.

“I just—”

Darlin’s eyes lightened as if the two words had told them all they needed to know. He watched them step back out of the warm light of his home and into the dark winter evening.

“It’s me. Isn’t it?”

Sam’s heart lurched as he watched the person he loved most curl into themself. Their arms crossed as fingers clawed into the fabric of their jacket. He had known from the moment they told him about their past that their self-worth had taken several hits in their life, but to discover it was damn near beaten out of them entirely made it hard to breathe, let alone speak.

They pushed the air out of their breath, whispering a weak Goodnight, Sam, before turning away. He moved past them, hands on their shoulders to keep them from running into him.

Or away from him.

Their breath caught as they came face to face with him once again. Dark eyes had grown glassy, Sam steeling his nerves and finally managing to speak a full sentence.

“We need to talk.”

A humorless chuckle left them, as sharp as the canines that flashed when they grinned. “Now we need to talk?”

“Actually talk, Darlin’. Have a proper sit-down and—”

“And what, Sam? Talk about how you don’t want to do it?”

Their resolve wavered, as did the exhale that left them. “Or that you… can’t ?” they finished, voice breaking as a growl left them. Using the backs of their hands, Darlin’ rubbed their eyes roughly as if angry at them for daring to produce tears at all.

“It isn’t like that,” Sam said firmly, willing to give up everything he owned to get them to stop looking so damn broken.

“Then what is it like?” Darlin’ snapped, sorrow shifting to something more familiar…something safer.

Anger.

“Because I’ve been asking you for months, and if you don’t ignore me completely, you keep saying we need to talk. Well, I’ve been trying to for once in my fucking life, and you never seem to be in a very talkative mood.”

Sam breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. “Darlin’, I mean this most respectfully,'' he started, brows furrowing, “but what I remember is a whole lot of demandin’, not attempts at talkin’.”

“Then you must have been paying even less attention than I thought.”

The words bit deeper than the bitter air around them.

“So you don’t consider tryin’ to force an answer outta me bein’ demandin’,” Sam questioned, sure that if he could, his face would be warming at the situation. It wasn’t going as smoothly as he’d hoped, Darlin’s heartbeat making a mess of his concentration as it ran away from them.

“Wanting a proper yes or no isn’t being demanding.”

“It is when the other person isn’t ready to answer yet.”

Darlin’ pushed the air from their nose. “And when did you say that? Because changing the subject? Not an answer,” they said as they stepped toward him, shoving him with one hand.

He stepped back willingly, doing so again when their hand repeated the action with more force.

“Saying we’ll talk later, then taking up more responsibility from William? Not an answer.”

Sam’s back hit his truck, Darlin’s hand flat against his chest as it gripped his shirt to pull him toward them. Even without their hold, dark eyes would have pinned him where he stood. Their resolve faltered as did their grip on him, breath heavy as they reeled themself back.

“I just wish you had trusted me enough to tell me it straight instead of leading me on. I would have understood,” they whispered. “You know that, right? And I–I get it. I know I’m…”

They cut themself off, their trembling hand dropping back to their side as if they’d lost all feeling. Nausea twisted in his gut as he watched them— really watched them. The way their eyes avoided his own. How their arms wrapped around themself again as they turned away, cursing under their breath.

“What were you going to say…?” he asked, unsure of when he’d begun to tremble as well, but finding it was almost impossible to stop.

“Doesn’t matter,” they answered.

Their shoulders drooped.

“It does,” Sam said, a bit more forcefully than he’d intended. He hated when they spoke down on themself and made all that they were smaller for the sake of convenience. It grated on his nerves more than anything else, seeing the person he’d come to care for thinking his issues were somehow their fault.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” they said. Sam parted his lips only for them to push the air from their nose and shake their head. “Would you look at that, it’s easier to say than one might think.”

He pressed his lips thin as the right words escaped him once again.

They stood together in silence, Darlin’ forcing themself to calm while Sam kept his distance. It wasn’t as if there was much between them, Sam thinking more than once what their reaction would be to him pulling their back into his chest.

Would they fight him? Swing on him while screaming for him to let them go?

Or would they melt against him and whisper the insults, knowing well that the heat behind them was lackluster?

“It isn’t because of you,” Sam admitted with a racing heart once he regained some nerve. “Nothin’ about my hang-ups involvin’ the bite is because of you.”

Darlin’ didn’t turn to face him, but they didn’t try to leave, which he guessed counted for something.

“Or because of what happened to you,” he added, knowing he had hit the nail on the head when they flinched. Their sharp intake of breath had the cogs in Sam’s brain working overtime as their persistence began to make sense. “Shit, Darlin’,” he whispered, squinting at them. “He told you somethin’...didn’t he?”

They remained silent as Sam’s nerves threatened to take over. He swallowed them with great effort.

“There’s a lot I haven’t told you…stuff I’ve wanted to but couldn’t get out. Someone trustin’ me enough to ask me to bite them…that’s new to me. Foreign. Terrifying. And the fact that the person askin’ me for it has experience with someone who wasn’t…”

“I know what he was and wasn’t,” Darlin’ hissed while peering over their shoulder, meeting his gaze only for a moment before it flicked away to whatever was behind him.

Sam knew he was walking on thin ice, bringing up their past the way he was. He had been backed into that very corner he had avoided for so long; however, if he wasn’t clear, he was sure this would end worse than he’d imagined.

“I just don’t want this to end up being something we look back on and regret. I don’t want you to see me the way I remember her. That would destroy me.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“You don’t know that.”

The ache in his chest only intensified when they finally met his gaze, eyes filled with unshed tears.

“I can’t lose you.”

They swallowed hard. “So…you don’t want me, but you don’t want to lose me,” they said, brow furrowing. Their crossed arms moved up and down their jacket sleeves. “Quite a paradox if I say so myself.”

“I do want you!” Sam corrected, “Hell, I’ve wanted you since the moment you called me to heal you up, bleedin’ all over that damn couch.”

They don’t react to the words, but he can see it in their eyes.

Hope. Relief.

Uncertainty.

They shifted on their feet. “That long?”

Sam exhaled, confused why they’re asking. “That long. Maybe even longer, if I’m being honest.”

“I didn’t know,” they said, biting at the skin of their lower lip. “I thought I was…that we weren’t…”

“Weren’t…?” Sam repeated, watching as they sank toward the snow-covered ground. They hid their face in their knees, hands ruffling their hair with a groan that bordered on a growl.

“ Together .”

Blinking, Sam sank with them, eyeing them in disbelief. “All this time, you thought we were just…messin’ around?”

“You never said anything that implied differently!” they insisted, voice muffled as they curled further into themself. “We never…set a label. And I didn’t need one, but then you kept avoiding me and you wouldn’t tell me anything other than later or soon, so I thought you were bored or—”

Sam reached out, wrapping a hand around their wrist and rubbing slow circles against their racing pulse. He wanted to lay his heart out to ease their worries. He wanted to tell them how much he loved them—how they had become a part of his life.

Made life worth living.

But right now, they were damn near spiraling. This wasn’t the time for a full-blown confession…just security that this wasn’t another situationship going high-speed to nowhere.

“I want to be with you. Not as a fling. Not as something temporary,” he explained, staring into their eyes and watching the light he’d nearly snuffed out earlier return full force. Then came the expressions as Sam’s lips threatened to curl. He held it back, however. “If someone asks if you got someone special, I wanna be that person.”

Darlin’s gaze hesitated, moving to him, then sideways, him again, and away once more.

“You want that with me?”

“Don’t sound so shocked about it,” Sam reprimanded with a raised brow. “I done told you how I felt about you months ago.”

“You said you cared about me.”

“And I do .”

“But so does David, and Asher, and Milo, and Christian, even if he can be an ass sometimes—”

Sam pulled them forward, the feeling of them in his arms a relief after nearly losing them to an argument that wouldn’t have happened had they both been honest about their baggage rather than trying to hide it away. When they went limp against him, he loosened his grip on their wrist out of precaution.

“Lemme show you how much my care has grown. Stay the night. We’ll talk for as long as you want. Please?” he murmured. “It’s damn cold out here, and I just wanna warm you up some before you catch a cold.”

He waited patiently, feeling them pull away slightly to stare at him properly. Then came the nod.

“Alright. But…,” they whispered as they moved forward, breath brushing against his neck. He could feel some warmth from their cheeks, but the rest of them was borderline trembling. “My legs are numb.”

Sam peered downward to see that his pull had forced them onto their knees with him. He muttered an apology, more than happy to carry them inside. He could feel how they hid in his neck the moment he scooped them into his arms, no longer fighting how his lips curled at the edges.

They were too damn cute for someone with so much bite.

“I won’t ask you to bite me anymore,” they whispered, “But just know that for someone who preaches to the choir about how important it is to communicate…you’re pretty fucking shit at it.”

He snorted at the comment, holding them tighter as he reached the front door, stepping into the warmth and feeling them shudder in his arms.

“Hi, Pot. I’m Kettle.”

“I never said I was great at communicating,” Darlin’ grumbled, though he swore their lips twitched at the greeting.

“Yeah, well, lucky for you,” Sam said, kicking the door shut behind him and pressing a kiss to their temple. “We got time to get better at it together.”

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