samuhelll - Tumblr blog

[samuhelll]

On repeat, it's swirling back round again: the same blurred feeling from three weeks ago. Sam, out of focus-

“I don't know when I'm gonna…” His throat goes tight. He looks down to his cigarette, breathing hard. “How much time I've...” 

She grabs his wrist. He doesn’t remember when she did. He doesn't remember this, either: a pair of arms coming up around him as Margot holds him bodily tight, and suddenly something in Sam swells then lurches. Spills. He’ll drown in it. 

What does he need? Everything. Sam is absolute in his selfishness, has always taken until there was nothing left to give like rubbing a wound down to the bone- the raw, sucking aftermath. He feels it even now. Unabatedly needy. Incessant in his wanting. Margot holds him, and in the midnight haze, Sam, his mind long gone from three weeks’ dread and dead silent, addled and asleep, only feels now: the want to kiss and to be kissed, to be pushed hard against the spread of her sheets until he's a world and a half away and nothing, not even mortality, could reach him.

He stalls. The bog fills the silence. Finally, he holds back, and when he lays his palms over her—so sure he would not survive being let go. So gentle as to belie it—Sam knows he does not want it like this. Desperate. Sad.

His throat catches, sticky.

“—Can I stay tonight?”

He will not see the four walls of his home another second, and he will sleep in a bed that is not his.

Finally, he looks to her. Misty greys meet rainy blues. The lightning crack of his words and the thunder strike of understanding. Two storms that could drown the whole mountain in their sorrow and turn this summer eve on its head.

He's dying.

Margot has grown so terribly accustomed to these moments when happiness seems within reach, only for the other shoe to just as quickly drop. Most times, she bears them and trudges ever-forward with that hallmark mettle of hers. Not even iron is as strong as the rot.

This time, it's different. Notices how her ears buzz and her mind goes slate-blank and her hand flashes to grip Sam's wrist, like he might fade away with the cigarette smoke if she doesn't hold onto him. The warm breeze insults the blood boiling beneath the skin, all this beautiful weather while their world crumbles. She wants the sky to break open and cry for them. For the hopes of a future being ripped out from underneath them. Instead, the night keeps humming the symphony of its life. The earth goes on in its unforgiving way, and Sam is just another mortal thing, like the croaking frogs and the blooming skullcaps. They care not, will likely die before him. It matters to nothing and no one but him and the one he'll leave behind.

Her breaths are audibly shaky, as she digs desperately deep in search of her center. She finds it, again, in the reality of this matter — she has to compartmentalize, save this grief for later. Sam, whose mirthless laugh sends a chill down her spine, is the one who needs her comfort now. Her full presence. Not this half-cocked version of herself, getting stuck into a tail-spin of losing him.

Swallowing it is like pushing a hot coal into her chest, but she manages. The dizzy feeling doesn't go down easy. It's only muted. A light blur at the edges of her vision. However long he has left, it's not long enough. Already haunted by the end when they've barely just begun.

All she wants to do is hold him — and that is, indeed, all she does. Arms slipping slow over his shoulders, she hugs him tight. Keeps him close. Blinks away the tears without even a sniffle, silently hoping he won't notice. And Margot asks him the question she's asked a thousand times before to all those knocking on death's door.  

" What do you need from me? "

[samuhelll]

question to the floor: does your muse sleep around? if so, are they fulfulled? or do they only want a committed relationship?

[samuhelll]

“Gotta give Shakespeare some pointers...” He teases, low and rumbly. Sam raises his eyebrows. “Buckle up, because I'm — about to take you on a ride.”

Bella is strange in more ways than one. Not for her proclivity for the night or the blood, but for this: the way she gets starry-eyed about it. The way she leans against him like she's known him forever, not just tonight. 

“Alright. So you're bottled up, someone takes the first sip— what are they tasting?” he springs up, looking over to her. “Strawberries? No? …Bet you're a cherry girl. Alright. Feeling.” 

Sam tugs his mouth in thought, her reflection sucked into the gray-blue of his eyes. He unspools a finger. 

“How about a cold glass… on a hot summer day,” he starts. He didn't think so. Sam smiles, their footsteps clicking. “Friday night, out on the town, Mr. Right walks up to you... butterflies.” He opens his palm out like voilà, long and slow. “Cherry on top? He asks you for a dance.”

That's what she'd feel like: the sparkle to your toes and your fingers, the dizzy-headed smile that comes with infatuation. 

Sam clicks his tongue, ruminating. “Yeah,” he says. “That's it.”

Bella tucks her hand into his elbow, curling opposite fingers around the hanky she's been told to keep.

As they walk, she leans heavy on his side, affectionate. It was the start of a beautiful friendship - and Bella was infinitely glad she'd stopped to chat.

She likes his warmth - rare, after all, was the man who got to see so much of her exposed skin and tell the tale. Most friendships are formed within the safety of long sleeves. But then, this was not a normal friendship, was it? She didn't ave to worry that he'd baulk at her nature, did she?

"It's unlike anything you can imagine." Bella confirms, smiling perhaps a smidge too sharp. "Everyone is different, usually. But blood tastes like feeling. You watch and you pick and then after all that's done, you bite down - and, well, the first feeling is similar to relief. And then the rush of a filling meal, and then the feeling the blood gives you." She pauses a second to think. "He was like the pit of nerves before you go into a meeting. Not terrible, you know, but not ideal. Palateable. You, I think, would taste like something more exhilarating. Like the swoop in your stomach when the rollercoaster drops."

[samuhelll]

He will, indubitably, always remember this. A wash of silver light in where she lies beneath him. Their breaths still heavy from the strings of kisses and light-headed laughs. Face-to-face, flushed in tandem. 

Sam-

He stills, afraid of what she might say. Afraid of what she won't. 

Something catches in his throat, and his mouth unsticks.

“You- mean that?” Croaky, he sounds small. He already rocked himself onto his knees, scooped her up with him, as if, here, he can see her clearly. As if he never thought he’d hear it. As if something in him isn't already caving, stirring fervently, remember to breathe.

“I love you, too,” he finally says, and he kisses her into the ground. 

-

In the damp aftermath, spent and red down his chest, Sam rolls onto his back against the grass and the too-flattened flowers, beckoning Margot to flop against him, curled tight. 

He doesn’t know what time it is. He smells of grass and dirt, sweat and her. Sam lets out a loud howl, half-expecting a slap and a laugh.

“Told you you’d enter the jungle,” he winds down.

She may have her legs tangled about him. It's how he likes it. His mind begins to wander, then, careless in its drifting, like sifting through the hazy feeling waking from a dream, and Sam, his chest still throbbing, looks at either a star or a constellation - he wouldn’t know where to start.

“Can I tell you something," he starts, still looking out to the dotted sky. From her angle, she might not see his face. “Really wish we did this sooner.”

This. Them.

He draws a line down her arm.

The heat of him chases the cold of night away, no space left between them for the breeze to seep in. She loses herself to his touch. Fever-hot hands pressing red marks into her rising hips, her bared belly. Fingers find the hemline of his white undershirt, the zipper of her jeans, finally lost to the weeds after some clumsy attempts at peeling them away.

Sweet sounds pepper breathless kisses. Lips find jawlines, necks, clavicles. Hands slide over his big shoulders and smooth down his back, pressing his body that much closer to hers. Grass-stained legs wrap around his waist, thin cotton the last barrier between them. She wants to take all of him, full weight and full force. Wants to blur with him until she can't tell where he ends and she begins.

He stops, she wonders what might be wrong, only for the look on his face to tell her nothing is wrong at all. No, he just wanted to look at her. Cornflower-blue eyes strip her down far past the flesh, the most vulnerable parts of her pouring out into the moonlit field. No sun shines but the mountain laurels yawn their pink mouths awake. The asters blink, the harebells sing, the azaleas ignite their flaming petals. A symphony of color that bleeds from a coal-black soul and sparks the life all around them.

Margot gazes up at him like he's the most beautiful thing on this earth. Sam stares back at her with the very same adoration.

She reaches across their silence. Gently tucks a stray hair behind his ear and lets her touch linger on his cheek. She wants to say something, searching for it in the lines of his face. She isn't sure what is taking shape in her throat until it's halfway spoken.

" Sam — " She almost reassures, you don't have to apologize. She almost teases, here's to looking at you, kid. Instead, her heart unearths itself completely. " I love you. "

[samuhelll]

The Larry Sanders Show 4.10 "Conflict of Interest"

[samuhelll]

Sam grips backwards against the counter. He taps his thumb against it, his mouth going slant. “You’d- do the same for me,” he starts, gravelly. “Right?”

He wasn’t looking for an answer.

The chair squeals as Lucy climbs on. She drinks beer, the quiet sound of swallowing, the bottle clicking down. The floorboards settle like even the apartment has been stirred awake, wanting desperately for sleep. Sam feels it on the horizon, then: the impending truth just about to pass Lucy’s lips. Everything she’s withheld as if he’d hoped a hot shower would have washed the red and the memories, the tangible truth, right down the drain. 

Lucy’s fork clinks the plate. Lucy looks at him for the first time. He opens his mouth.

“Who…?” The word slipped out a second too late. A fissure sits between his brow, and Sam breathes long. “Listen. You… did what you thought you had to.”

The orange light washes over him. It floods into the infinite space, sinking into the lines besides Lucy’s eyes. Beside her mouth. In the way she looks out in front of herself: the unending distance.

“Self-defense,” Sam tries again.

That's not all of it. Sam peels off the counter.

“There's only winners and losers,” he says. “And you won.”

despite the warmth that comes from her body, she shivers in the air. the shirt smells like sam's cologne-- warm, familiar. not that she'd ever admit that out loud. lucy nods, taking a seat across from him. " you didn't have to do all this. i honestly expected you to kick me out at the first sign of trouble. "

in all honesty, lucy doesn't mind being taken care of. it's ... nice, for once, to be in this position. deep down, he's aware of not being worthy enough to deserve sam's caring. after all, he's tried to bite his fingers off! she feels like a dog, coaxed out of his hiding space. is it pity that sam feels for her? it has to be, lucy surmises. anything else wouldn't be accurate.

she doesn't reach for the fork at first. instead, she goes for the beer. it's not her taste, but damn it, it works right now. she sniffles, the hand not holding a beer under her nose again. not sick. only upset. he drains half of the beer before he sits it down, the sound of bottle against table a soft click.

this entire time, he hasn't really looked at sam. it's all been out of the corner of her eyes, quick flashes. is it a dick move? maybe. he swallows hard, eyes turning up to meet his. there's something tired in her eyes, like the weight of the world has finally come crashing down on her.

" i didn't want to. " a truth, crystalline in the moment. " i didn't have a choice, sam. i could have let him live but-- he put his hands on me. " her teeth shut with a click. " i'm sorry. i know you probably see me as some sort of awful monster now. i wouldn't blame you if you did. "

a moment of silence as she plays with the eggs.

" do you think i'm a bad person? "

[samuhelll]

Saul Goodman’s shirts | SHADES OF PINK

[samuhelll]

@samuhelll asked: ' you can't hide from me forever. '

from preacher's daughter prompts. not accepting.

The weight of him climbing into the bed rouses her from the third nap of the day, eager for relief from still-rigid muscles. Sleep the aches off. She glances at the red glow of the clock through the veil of cotton sheets, bleary-eyed. Half-past eight. The room is dark, her new skin still itches and burns. Margot hisses as she turns her body to face him, finding his hand in the blankets. Gives him a light squeeze. Her voice is groggy.

" It'd be a fool's errand to try hiding from you. "

Covers soon pulled over their heads, she curls into him. Seeks relief in his feverish embrace, more than any heating pad could hope to give her. Noses just barely brush together. The grave steals years from them, and the pain of revival steals their plans for the day. She promised to only sleep for thirty minutes, and wound up napping the rest of their evening away.

" I'm sorry I missed Jeopardy, I didn't mean to hunker down here for so long. " Guilt bubbles around her heart, seeps through the lines of her apologetic face. She wishes she could just push through this for him, feel good for him. Their time together has been cut short as is. " You'd think I'd be used to it by now, huh? "

It never gets better, really only ever gets worse. Margot bites that part back. He's already worried enough.

[samuhelll]

“For you!” he echoes, his fingers spread like fireworks.

It's a bit unorthodox, even for him. He knows full well they were scheduled for tomorrow, that the unannounced visit would, perhaps, throw Brienne off guard. She seems the type. Ask if you could meet on the weekend, and she'd give a polite, well-mannered smile. Unfortunately, it appears that I’m booked for the foreseeable future. How does next year sound?

“Was making my way through town when I thought, ‘Hey. Nothing says ‘thinking of you’” —he uncurls a finger. Now, he smiles— “‘more than a bouquet’,” he says. “Oh, and, uh. Luck of the Irish, right?”

He means the shamrocks. She invites him in because of course she does.

It’s what he expects. A too-nice house and a marble foyer, the kind of house that belongs to a woman who’s never had to worry about money. He sees no stains. No leftovers sitting about, or a day-old shirt hung at the back of a chair, or a book set haphazardly over the countertop as if she’d forgotten about it, the walls and tables absent of any photographs.

It's the house of a woman who lives alone.

“About that. Something’s come up, which, I mean… figures.” He huffs a laugh, straightening his back. “When life gives you lemons, you know?”

Sam lifts his hands, now. He half-turns.

“Big fan of what you've done with the place. I mean, one look and it’s like- wow... Brienne,” he almost marvels. “Very you.”

@samuhelll : flower, sender gives receiver a flower. (hearing "happy housewarming, kid") | actions speak louder than words ( always accepting this one )᠂ ⚘ ˚

“For me?” Shock is broken by the bouquet outstretched and her hand instinctively going to grad the brown parchment-wrapped stems. Honed politeness does its best to temper her expression’s confusion, not only at Sam for showing up at her Hampstead home door — uninvited, no address given — but also at the odd arrangement of flowers. Lilies, chrysanthemums, and are those tiny green shamrocks? Mind is too stretched to decode the symbolism, but it would seem the good luck of one contradicts the death tones of the other. 

“These are, lovely. Thank you.” Another second of blunt hesitation. “Apologies, where are my manners? You came all this way, please come in.” The door is pushed open at her back, allowing the life insurance salesman entry into the marble-tiled foyer. She debates whether or not to request him to take his shoes off, but remembers he’s American. Why make it any more awkward?

“I should put these in a vase,” she turns towards the open kitchen; clip-clops sounds of her house slides echo up to the high ceiling. The perfect vase enters her mind; simple glass, it's busy enough. “But I need to ask, is everything alright? If I remember correctly our meeting is scheduled for tomorrow. In my office. In the city.” Not today, and not at her home in Hampstead.

[samuhelll]

Music cascades. He hears the clatter of clinking forks and plates, the monotonous chatter blurred around him. Brienne, he has quickly learned, sees the glass half empty. More clouds than sun. Or maybe she thinks too much for her own good—the kind of woman whose worried, fevered thoughts could burn a hole through her skull.

She drinks at wine and starts at her foie gras, asking how he does it. As if he could say I can't die. That fact now amended with, yes, he can. Just differently.

“Make them an offer they can't refuse,” he says craggily, his voice like crumpled paper. “In layman's terms: bring something to the table.” Sam looks at her like she might doubt him. He perks up, talking with his hands. “You don't whack the guy who turns everything he touches into gold, alright? You take him - for yourself.” He smiles, airy. “—Figuratively speaking, anyway.” 

He's worth more to everyone alive than dead. Have something everyone wants.  

How badly can anyone want a life insurance agent?

“Careful as you are, I'll bet you've got the proverbial ace up your sleeve.” He picks up utensils. He makes the cut. “So to speak.”

Listening to Sam Croker is akin to taking a whimsical journey on the loud winds of a convoluted diatribe. Fate. Father Time. Medusa. It takes concentration to follow his flourishes and varied metaphors because one ponders whether a fact check is needed to buy what he’s selling. 

Her wine glass is lifted, the soft white wine sipped before set down to mirror his motions unfolding her white cloth napkin and placing it on her lap. “Well.” Voice drawls finally, uncertainty tensing her brow. “We offer a service in a marketplace of those same services. I think how easy it is to be discarded and replaced precisely because we are the little guy.”

The fork and knife find their respective hands to slice a bite-sized sliver of foie gras. Thought shifts her quiet gaze to the side; the fork holds its position on top of the cut piece. “You’re probably right though. Not really worth their time. But I wonder," thoughtful gaze returning, "How do you do it? The keep calm and forget it attitude?”

[samuhelll]

@samuhell asked: ' can i be yours? '

from preacher's daughter prompts. not accepting.

She's not the most fashion-forward at the best of times, swapping out couture for comfort. And at this late hour, she's looking especially cozy— opting for a pair of Sam's boxers as sleep-shorts, and coupling it with an old Iron Maiden graphic tee, some three sizes too large and faded from years of wear and machine wash. Black hair pulled into a messy bun, she's hunched over a crossword puzzle, mid-bite of a bowl of fruity pebbles when she stops to listen. Brows knit together, frowning at him in confusion.

" You already— Oh. " The clock strikes twelve and welcomes Valentine's Day, something she's historically celebrated only by scouring the local five-and-dimes for same-day discount chocolate. This year, it's different. Ringing it in with a valentine of her own, sitting opposite the quaint kitchen table, pushing a candy heart across the oak wood to her. Be mine, it reads. She smiles ear to ear. Her misty greys twinkle. Wild woman melting into a soft thing before his very eyes.

Perhaps it is just a Hallmark-gimmick holiday . . . But this is nice.

The Undertaker reaches into the clear candy bowl, black fingernails fishing for her sickly-sweet response of choice. Plucking a pink one out of the pastel batch, she reads it to herself and nods. Exactly what she was looking for. " Of course you can. I mean, you already know— "

The candy heart she places in front of him spells : I'm Crazy 4 U.

[samuhelll]

The cigarette's burning to a stub. 

There is too much on his mind, or too little, to form into something so distinct as words. So Sam says nothing and listens to the way her voice catches. She squeezes tighter. 

Don't think about it. Instead, it's something that he feels. The deep-belly dread like staring at a ringing phone in the dead of night, afraid, inexplicably, of what you'll hear. Like walking into a bedroom that used to be shared, the space now filled with hastily packed boxes. Overstuffed bags.

Sam feels it the way he feels bad memories, the past heavy, unwanted, and inescapable. The kind of oppressive dead weight that keeps you in bed until you've fused into the stale cotton sheets a week and a half later, still so heavy. Still so inconsolably tired. So when he sat in a sunken chair listening to her voice crackle through the answering machine, filling his inbox to bursting, he slipped into the driver's seat of an old car and drove until the yellow lines converged and his head turned muzzy. Margot's voice cracks and she looks him dead in the eye-

Are they taking you away from me.

One-hundred-and-fifty years; both wasted time and now too late. Another new feeling: his heart in his throat. Sam feels, stupidly, like his eyes are growing warm. Like the ground will start blurring beneath his feet.

The cigarette's burnt up.

“I don't-” He croaks. He stalls. Now, a breathy sound like a laugh, and he smiles. “I'm dying.”

At first, she doesn't notice it over his deafening silence. Then she feels it. A haunting pulse just beneath his heated skin, hammering into the callused pad of her own finger. Thunder drowning the cricket song, stamping out the smallest spark of any optimism. It does not take a genius to put two and two together — As punishment for perceived inadequacy, they've given him a vulnerable, soft, beating core. Easier to hurt. Easier to kill.

In the past few weeks, Margot had been left wondering where he might have crawled off to. Somewhere between eight calls and three voicemails left on his answering machine, she gave up the ghost. Did her best to bide her time as she always has. Draining blood, digging graves, working cases, and pulling her mind out of the many various rabbit holes of worry : Was he in trouble? Had he been hurt? Should she go looking for him? Some selfish thing within stopped her. What if she wouldn't like what she'd find? What if he simply found someone else?

She knows him too well. Knows he has instead been holed up all by his lonesome self, in his own lonesome apartment, listening to the echo of his new lonesome heartbeat. His flesh, his chest, the carotid of his throat where there once was none — it all hums a melody of life in a cruel tone. Margot wishes she could rip the mocking organ out with her teeth, a display of defiance. But she can't. Not without hurting him.

She should have gone to him.

She can now only squeeze his pulsing pinky tighter— this time, not only to steady Sam, but to steady herself as well. Every word he coughs up pulls the ground out from underneath her, stone by stone and board by board. His question threatens to finish the job, swallow her up completely. The words sound more like a blow to the back of her head, tinnitus ripping through her skull as dizzying panic creeps in.

" Not coming back? Sam, I don't understand. Are they— . . . Are you leaving? " Voice cracked and neck-high, distortion of her usual low resonance. She doesn't want to make this about her, because it's not. Doesn't want to place all of her mounting fear onto Sam's shoulders, so she swallows it down best she can to stoke the flare of pain in her chest. Still, some of that selfishness sneaks off the tongue. Clouds her old grey eyes with a pleading look : Please, no more beating around the bush.

" . . . Are they taking you away from me? "

[samuhelll]

Did they tell him.

Sam's face doesn’t change. He clears his throat. 

“Yeah,” he finally relents. “Something like that.”

Margot reaches for him. She hooks their pinkies together, maybe to bring him back down, keep him grounded. Sam is still a world and a half away, like sunken at the bottom of a bath with the lights turned off. He’s hardly noticed until he squeezes back.

“They gave me my heart back.” A low and croaky sound. Ash drips to the ground. “An– actual one,” he tacks on. “But you… probably already knew that.”

He doesn’t think to mention it. Memories of a wide open floor, the rot settling into the bones of the cathedral. Memories of feeling startlingly small, the lanterns of winking souls. He recalls, against his will, an echoing voice before his feet scrambled along the floor. After that came an over-large shadow and a hand in his chest, the subsequent days broken up only by the strangled sobs in the solitude of his own room. His new pulse.

She could probably see it. Under the pale fluorescent lightbulb, through the thick blanket of the night, maybe Margot would know if she looked hard enough: the slight rattling beneath the skin of his throat. He feels it even now. He’ll feel it again when crawling into bed like something weak and pathetic slapping the walls of his chest, begging to come out, and until the humming red numbers of his clock flashed to ten after four and his eyes waned heavy, he will have the television warbling to drown out the thudding in his ears—the sonorous inevitability. 

Sam’s throat feels tight. When he speaks, his voice is papery.

“It’s, uh, supposed to be connected to-” Death, he wants to say. Sam smokes, then, breathing long. “...him.”

Margot’s fingers are small and cold. He swallows cotton, looking at their hands. He can't look her in the eye, and he can't bring himself to say it. “What if... I wasn't coming back.”

They kicked him out. Words drop heavy from his tongue, stone-weights that settle hard and cold in the pit of her stomach. He doesn't need to elaborate, the who and why clear as the stars now blinking awake. Margot stays fixed on the black silhouette of the trees, searching for the sound of her own voice in their towering shadows. Instead, crickets. Cicadas. The croak of a frog somewhere out in the wetlands.

Margot wishes she could will some kind of shock, a display of indignation. It doesn't strike her as fair, never has, the passive disdain in the way many of the others always spoke to him. Of him. Undeserved scorn to eventually demand a price. Revelation dawns on her so heart-breakingly quick — this was always coming.

She notices it, doesn't she? Deep breath in, deep breath out.

" I do. " Honor among thieves, open books, just like they've always said. Margot has never spared him the truth, and the truth of the matter is that she hasn't been able to place it. Something inexplicable seeps from the pores of them and those like them, unnamed but known blind. Signal flares exchanged among each other, flames that dot the otherwise pitch-black of death's valley. Sam's has been snuffed out. " But I don't . . . Well, I'm still not sure what it is. "

Shuffling of his feet pulls her gaze back to him, and the fear is written all over him. Woven in the lines of his face, worrying the corners of his downturned mouth. A look that stokes the ache of dread building just under her breast bone. He hasn't told her the worst part of it all, that much is now clear.

Her painted hand reaches for him, wrapping her pinky finger around his. Twice the size of her own and still fever-hot. A quiet promise. Whatever comes next, she'll be at his side.

" Did they tell you? " Margot grips him that little bit tighter. " What this means for you, I mean? "

[samuhelll]

2X04 "Takiawase" ~ Gag reel (2014)

[samuhelll]

“I’ll take it,” he concedes with a rasp, like he has any say on the matter. “What color is the night? Black. And what do you do when it's night? You dream, am I right? Ergo—” He holds his pointer and middle finger out, rolling his wrist. He smiles, rakish. “You're a dream come true.”

He's infuriating.

The look that she gives him— She saw through him from the start. And the fact that she did, then curls what he presumes to be a knowing smile, sends Sam vaguely out of orbit. Or maybe that's not it. 

Maybe Margot thinks he's only playing. This is Sam being Sam, hopeless in his inclination for something wild to say. Sam is all frivolous strings of words and lopsided smiles, playing with everyone, except for when he isn't. 

“Hey, hand to God-”

She laughed; he smiles, open-mouthed. Their knees may have knocked together once, and Sam gestures to his own face.

“Are you kidding? The story writes itself,” he continues, gravelly, as if that settled everything. Sam lifts his chin and flashes another stupid angle. Then, a profile. “You just got a free date with Kevin Costner,” he says, pointing at her gyro. He quirks his mouth. “—Bragging rights.“

" You say that like I don't already own a bikini, Mister Worldwide. " Margot bounces her brow, feels a warmth flush her chest. She isn't entirely sure why, ultimately shoves the analysis of it aside for now. Chalks it up to the booze. Another sip and another brave quip, another slip and slide of her thoughts into daydreams of oceanside sunbathing with the man who's only her coworker. Her friend. Nothing more.

Her mind's been wandering down similar rabbit holes, lately. Too many. She hasn't told him, safer if they're quickly filled and buried. " It's a black set, though. Hope that's acceptable. " There's a knowing smile. Something tells her it's not the color that matters.

She said Croatan, he mistook it for Croatia. The Undertaker doesn't bother to correct him. There's a far more pressing matter on her mind.

" Bullshit. " Margot can't help but bark a laugh, thankful she wasn't mid-sip of gin. Sam's in perfect line of fire for a spit-take. " What happened to all that open book, honor among thieves shit you were preaching? And now you're sitting here, lying to my face. " But the most shocking part is the deepening of Sam's features. The look he's giving her. He's always been easy to read, open book indeed. He's not joking written clear on the page.

" No ... How the hell did you convince someone you were Kevin Fucking Costner? And before you start, I don't mean that in a bad way — " Terrible save. What she means is, I'd give you free dinner before Kevin Fucking Costner.

[samuhelll]

She hums a laugh against his neck. She guides him down for a kiss, long and slow. 

“Sure he did. He had a… Honda Civic,” Sam chimes, his eyebrows rising. 

He runs his fingers down the line of her back. Every word that leaves him is preposterous. Silly man, she might think. He smiles against her mouth, and how close she is—pressed flush against him. Wanting—has a way of making him feel warm and light in all the right places even now, years later. She plucks the keys and tosses them while he's in his haze. He huffs a sound like a laugh. Silly woman. 

“Going au naturale,” he croons lowly. No car. No shoes.

Margot's already peeled away, taking his hand as she coaxes him towards the backdoor. It rushes all at once: her careless, wild smile. Thoughts of her fervently splayed on her back beneath him, the sounds she’d make that will have neighbors wondering if there's something in the woods.

The door clicks shut, and Sam pulls her into a run.

- -

It is not their bedroom. In the meadow, there is no bed for them to lay over, no sheets to tangle their legs whenever they flip around. There is no light but the stars, the solitude of Ash Hollow so relentless that neither a windowlight nor a lamppost nor the red, faraway streaks of passing cars can be seen. There is only this: the too-tall grass and the chirping crickets. His hands underneath her shirt. 

It dissolves quickly. Sam stumbles kicking off sandals—he couldn't say no—and fumbles with the button of his pants. From there, it's extraordinarily easy to wrap up in one another, swaying and squeezing and kissing and kissing. He presses her into the ground hard then soft. Harder again.

He stops.

Margot's hair bleeds into the night around her, and for a startling hour, the look on Sam's face is fond.

“Sorry,” he finally breathes. He swallows. “Just wanted to look at you.”

Someone's excited. How could she not be? Humming laughter into his neck as he twirls her through the length of the kitchen, hands splayed under her thighs. So close yet so far from where she craves them. Needs them. The fantasies ramping up in her mind and stoking a flame. Interrupted only by the gentle thud of her feet back on the floorboards.

Warmth flushes her whole body, chasing out the ever-present chill. She doesn't know if it's from her furnace of a husband or the hot coil ready to spring somewhere deep in her belly. Doesn't know where she ends and he begins, and stopped caring a few spins and ass-grabs ago. She clings to him still, arms wrapped around his neck, dragging him down to eye-level. Pulling him into another close-mouthed kiss. Still long, still slow.

" I don't think John Thornton had a car, " she murmurs against him. Keys make for terrible chimes. She lingers deep against his lips for another spell, the perfect distraction as she plucks the metal from his hands and tosses them by the wayside. Slips from their embrace only once the keys are out of sight and out of mind. Ink-laden hands slide into his own as she steps back. Starts pulling him towards the back porch door, towards the shadows of the towering spring pines.

" I know a place not too far. Don't need shoes, don't need vehicles. " Margot's grin is equal parts sharp and playful. Fighting the urge to take a bite. Good things come to those who wait. " Only if you're brave enough to really answer the call. "

[samuhelll]

@celesteye asked: “Sorry Alice was such an ass to you she’s… I’d say a fiery kid but she was being a bit of a dick.” She mostly feels sorry for poor Sam’s shins that had become a victim of a drive-by kicking by the little girl. She’s hoping the bottle of whiskey she’s holding up to him is an okay apology. “Something to uh… soften the blow. She won’t do it again, promise.”

There's a first time for everything. Sarah gets to see him in jeans and a pullover, something from an Ash Hollow gift shop. Sarah is offering whiskey as an apology. Her daughter had kicked him in the shin.

“Thanks,” Sam says in that throaty way of his, almost introspective. He turns the bottle over in his hand—a good one.

“Tell David Beckham she owes me a check,” he continues, peering back up. “—When she makes the big leagues.” He rattles the bottle lightly, then as if to explain himself- “Financial compensation.”

He doesn't mean it. Possibly. Sarah would probably want to laugh or egg the girl to kick him again later out of spite.

Were he human, he'd still be bruised.