#Sam kiszka fan fiction | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

garbagevanfleet · 2 years ago

Text

Pink Lemonade (series)

PART NINE

Pairing: Sam x female!reader

Word Count: 18k words (my longest chapter of anything, ever)

Summary: Being a counselor at your childhood summer camp had been your dream since you were little and you had a specific vision of how it would go when it finally happened. You had not, however, planned to make an immediate enemy.

WARNINGS (this chapter): EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT - 18+ ONLY, tobacco use, feelings, suspense, talk of drugs.

Editor in Chief (and creator of the moodboard on each chapter): @gardenvanfleet

MASTERPOST

Special Playlist here

You were living in a state of bliss - puppy love, sun-kissed bliss. If your infatuation for Sam weren’t all-consuming, you’d probably feel some form of regret for rejecting this kind of thing all throughout your teenage years - all the missed opportunities. But, as it were, he was all you could think about. You found yourself staring longingly at him across the table at breakfast the next morning, as if your pillow didn’t still smell like him from the night before.

With a little work, you were able to convince him to hang out with you at the lake that day, which served as the perfect excuse to show off a swimsuit you’d packed for camp that was just barely on the wrong side of modest. The Rayban’s he’d worn hid his eyes pretty well, but it pleased you to imagine they were glued to you as you laid out next to him in the sun.

The end of your break was quickly approaching; soon, the grounds would be swarming with kids and counselors again, so you took every opportunity you could to be physically close to him. When the break had started, the five days felt like they’d stretch on endlessly, but you knew everything had an end, so you tried not to mourn its passing before it was even over.

For once, the need to clean the sunscreen and sweat off your skin had outweighed the desire to be intimately close to him, so when you were done at the beach, you and Sam agreed to part ways to shower in your separate cabins with the agreement that you’d meet up again before dinner. You were toweling off when you heard your phone buzz on the lip of the sink, the vibrations sending it sliding into the basin.

You’d been expecting a text from Sam - maybe a check-in from Josh - so you were a little puzzled to see it was from the director, asking you to report to his office for a meeting at your earliest convenience. You immediately threw your hair up and assured him you’d be there in just a few moments.

When you knocked on the director’s door, it only took a few seconds for him to call you in. You had those butterflies you’d get any time you were summoned by authority, but nothing about his body language seemed to be out of the ordinary yet. You sat in the leather chair in front of his desk and offered him a smile when he greeted you.

“How is this summer going for you?” he asked, though you couldn’t tell if it was just small talk, so you kept your response brief.

“Very well, I think. I’m really enjoying it the more I get comfortable with the role.”

He nodded curtly. “You’re doing an excellent job.”

You were aware that he wasn’t the type of man to dole out undue compliments, so you let yourself feel pride in his praise as you thanked him.

“I called you in today because there’s a matter I’d like to discuss with you. Has Sam made you aware of his situation?”

Your stomach sank, leaving you with a sharp panic. You tried to shove the feeling down. Though you were terrified he was going to address the very obvious relationship you’d gotten swept up in, he could just as well be checking up on Sam’s performance.

“No, sir,” you declined, shaking your head to sell what technically wasn’t a lie.

He hummed. “I had suspected as much. Normally it would be strictly against my policies - personal and otherwise - to share personal information about a counselor, but I think you’ll agree that this is an exception.” He leaned forward in his chair, resting his folded hands on his desktop in a way that told you he wished he didn’t have to have this conversation. “Sam is here as a condition of legal sentencing. Obviously, I won’t disclose any more information about the crime itself, but he’s a counselor with us this summer because he’s serving a sentence.”

It wasn’t tough to keep a straight face since he hadn’t given you anything you didn’t already know, but you braced yourself as you nodded for him to continue.

“I speak regularly with his parole officer - a check-in to ensure everything is going as planned, and from what I’ve seen thus far, he’s been a perfectly adequate counselor. Having had a closer eye on him, would you agree?”

“Absolutely,” you agreed instantly. You knew Clarence Graywater well enough to know he valued professionalism above anything else, so you tried to approach the subject with a sterile tone instead of gushing the way you’d become accustomed to. “Sam is actually a great counselor. Every cycle of kids has loved him and he’s been a great partner to have - very easy to work with.”

The dark humor behind the situation wasn’t lost on you; if he’d asked you the same question a few weeks ago, who knows how you would have responded.

“Very well,” he allowed. You might have been able to convince yourself that this was nothing more than a routine evaluation of Sam’s work if it weren’t for the way the director’s mouth tightened at the corners.

He fixed his eyes on the desk for a beat as he seemed to consider his next words. “Since we can’t very well monitor his behavior for the court if he isn’t here, another condition of Sam’s parole is that he be strictly forbidden from leaving the camp grounds.” After a brief pause for you to process what he was saying, he continued. “That being said, did you and Sam leave the grounds yesterday?”

You tried as hard as you could to keep the disappointment from your face, but you knew he could see it. Your stomach was in knots as you swallowed back the nervous lump at the back of your throat and nodded. “We did.” You had to force yourself to cautiously ask, “What’s going to happen?”

The director wasn’t one to let his emotions get the better of him, but for the first time since you’d known him, the frown he was wearing showed genuine sympathy for your situation. “I’m sure you understand how serious this is. I don’t see any other choice but to report this back to the proper authorities. Please get yourself prepared to proceed without a partner for the last two cycles - we’ll split his future campers up amongst other counselors.”

You liked to think you could handle a lot. You’d always been able to stay cool under pressure, but you could feel your bottom lip starting to quiver pathetically. Unable to fully control your volume, you blurted, “No, wait. Please - this isn’t Sam’s fault.”

“Then who would you place the blame on?” he asked, though hadn’t seemed to make a firm decision, leaving you to hope that you could reason with him.

“Me. I was the one that asked him to go to town with me. We went there to get supplies for the campers - little stuff like snacks and prizes for the games we play with the kids. I asked him to go because I thought he’d know what to pick out for his boys better than I would.” Again, not technically a lie.

“Sam was well aware of the conditions of his sentencing,” the director replied, shocking you by still keeping a sympathetic approach.

“But I was the one-” You cut yourself off in frustration before trying again. “You have to agree that there’s a power imbalance between us - even though we’re both new counselors here this summer, I’m the one that’s familiar with how everything works. I’m positive he felt as though he couldn’t say no. He may not have even really considered it ‘leaving the grounds’, since we were going to get supplies for the campers here. It’s a moral gray area at best.”

He was visibly struggling with the decision as he stared at nothing in particular. “What would you have me do then?”

You let your eyes slip shut as you tried to banish the emotions that were swallowing you up. “Please. Please, consider not reporting this. He’s more than halfway through this summer. I don’t want to have to do this alone, and I don’t want to have to get familiar with a new partner.”

He remained stony-faced with his eyes fixed on you. “You’re proposing I let Sam break the terms of a legal sentence?”

“Please. This is my fault and I’ll take full responsibility for it,” you stated. “I never break rules, but I can’t see the harm in letting this one slide. You’re the director of this camp; if you feel like you must report this to his officer, you could explain that you assigned us to get supplies and he was monitored the whole time by a trusted member of your staff - because he was. I was with him every second that we were away from here.”

A few long seconds passed by, marked by the rhythmic ticking of the antique standing clock against the far wall of his office. You held your breath until your lungs started to ache for air as you awaited his final judgment, and finally, he cleared his throat to speak.

“I’m not going to report this, but believe me when I say I don’t enjoy being put in this position. If anything like this happens again, I won’t hesitate to take action.”

This time you didn’t even try to disguise the relief you felt as you heaved out a breath. “Thank you so much.”

“Find something for the two of you to do as adequate punishment,” he instructed, leaning back in his chair as the heavy cloud hanging over the room dissipated. He waved you out with a little smile, letting you know he still had a soft spot for you as a counselor. Still, you didn’t waste any time getting out of his line of sight, lest he change his mind.

It wasn’t until you got out of the building and onto the dirt path that you started to feel it - this crippling anger weighing you down. It was different than the frustrated jealousy you’d felt not that long ago at breakfast. This felt more like true betrayal.

You let yourself soak in it on the walk back to your cabin. Sam was conveniently standing just outside his door, so clearly unsuspecting as he stamped out his cigarette with a pleased smile. “There you are. I was wondering where you could have snuck off to.”

You reached past him and opened his cabin door, planted a hand on his chest, and guided him inside, all without saying a word; you knew there weren’t a lot of people around, but you didn’t want to risk the off chance that someone would hear you lay into him.

“Sam, I just got back from the director’s office,” you stated firmly.

Instantly, you could see it click into place for him as a worried frown formed over his features. Still, he had the audacity to ask, “What- Why?”

“You know why,” you snapped, not bothering to dampen the acid in your tone.

He bit into his bottom lip and muttered a curse in dread for what you were about to say to him.

“Why would you do something like that?!”

He flinched just slightly at your volume, but you could see his posture hardening in defense. “Why the fuck would he have called you in and not me?”

Ignoring his question, you demanded, “Why would you put me in a position like that? Why wouldn’t you have just said no when I asked if you wanted to go into town?”

“I don’t know, you just looked so hopeful-”

You shook your head. “No, don’t you dare put this on me. You could have just told me you weren’t allowed to leave the fucking grounds - that you were breaking the fucking law!”

“It’s embarrassing,” he reasoned with a deep-set frown. “I honestly figured that since everyone was gone and we were on break, no one would notice if I was gone for a couple of hours.”

“That’s stupid, and you know it.”

He didn’t bother denying it. Instead he just quietly asked, “So, I’m leaving then? They’re sending me back?”

A bitter laugh escaped you. “No, Sam, you’re not. You’re not, because I talked him out of reporting it - because I took responsibility for it.”

You’d been expecting him to look relieved, but instead, he adopted a frustrated expression. With a tight-set jaw and a quiet kind of outrage, he asked, “What?”

“I took responsibility for your stupid choice,” you snarled unforgivingly. “I’ve worked hard to earn the director’s trust and I’m so humiliated, Sam.”

Behind his eyes, you could see him sorting through his emotions, trying to figure out how he should feel. You were hopeful for a second that he’d come to his senses - that he’d apologize and thank you profusely and recognize your sacrifice for what it was, but your stomach sunk as his eyebrows threaded together in a deep frown. He snapped, cold and petulant, “No one asked you to do that. I don’t need you to speak for me, nor do I want it.”

The response felt like a kick in the teeth, forcing you to take a second to gather your thoughts back up. When you could speak, you found that it came out as a jagged cry. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be going to fucking jail, Sam! The very least you could do is thank me and apologize, but honestly, I’d expect something closer to groveling.”

There was a fire burning in him, making his normally soft, brown eyes look sharp and spiteful. “I’m not a fucking child. I didn’t ask you to take the fall for me - you did that all on your own. I made my choice and you made yours.”

You just stared at him, slowly shaking your head in disbelief. The few seconds of silence in the room was crushingly heavy as all the fight drained from you, leaving you feeling empty. You couldn’t see the point in wasting any more emotional energy on him, so your voice was calm and small as you told him, “You’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met in my life. I guess this is for the best.”

The sudden lack of hostility seemed to sober him. Once the outrage cleared and he got a look of just how disappointed you were, he softened, ripping his eyes away and casting them elsewhere. In your infinite naivety, you gave him a couple of seconds to apologize - to make it even a little bit better - but, he faltered.

You decided you didn’t want to wait for him to slap together some pitiful explanation. He called your name as you turned around and left him there, but you answered only by shutting the door hard behind you. You hoped that the lack of closure would haunt him. Just a few hours ago, he’d had access to nearly every single part of you, but the one thing you weren’t willing to give him was the satisfaction of seeing you cry.

❀❀❀

The next few hours felt like months - they crawled by with a frustrating reluctance as you sat with your back against the headboard of your bed and your face buried in your bent knees.

Just like that, you’d run the entire gamut of a romantic relationship - start to finish. This was just the bookend. The after.

You knew there were people in the world that experienced real tragedy, but this hurt. In that moment, the only thing you could feel was the ache - the loss and betrayal, leaving you without any perspective on just how mundane an issue it actually was.

You were able to find a little comfort in reminding yourself that Josh would be back sometime the following day, and whether it was true or not, you assured yourself that he’d know how to help.

He showed up early the next day, some time shortly after breakfast (which Sam was predictably absent for). When he knocked on your cabin door, you’d had a fleeting moment of hopeful panic that it would be Sam.

Josh was wearing a little smile when you opened the door, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his coral-colored shorts as he absently rocked on his white sneakers. He greeted you with a side hug, and you hadn’t been intending to, but you pulled him in fully, a little too tight to just be casually happy to see someone.

The truth was that it was such a relief to not be alone with your thoughts, and the comforting presence of your best friend was exactly what you’d needed.

There was the slightest hesitation, like he was trying to figure out if he was missing something, before he gave a confused laugh and hugged you back. “It’s nice to see you too,” he joked, but he tensed entirely when you pulled away and he got a good look at you.

Josh’s brown eyes scanned over your defeated posture, his expression slipping into one of concern when he recognized the state you were in. “Are you alright?” he asked, following you back to your room.

With how tight your throat felt, you knew you couldn’t trust your voice to not make a fool of you, so you settled for shrugging at him. It obviously wasn’t a satisfying answer, so he repeated the question, a little more pointedly as he sat next to you on your bed.

After deciding there was no point in lying to him by playing it off, you pursed your lips and shook your head.

There was a genuine sympathy behind the way he cautiously placed a hand in the center of your back, between your shoulder blades, reminding you that this was your friend - that he was just about the safest person on earth to confide in.

“You wanna tell me what’s wrong?” he prompted, using a tone of voice that gave you an out in case you wanted to say no.

It took a few good seconds for you to gather enough courage to speak after you parted your lips. You couldn’t quite meet his eyes, so you fixed them on a knot in the hardwood floor boards as you admitted to him, “Everything fell apart.”

“With Sam?”

You nodded. “Yeah.”

Josh hadn’t known you for that long, and going through heartbreak together was uncharted territory; there was a bit of uncertainty in guessing how you liked to be comforted. It was clear that he wasn’t sure in his decision to hold out his hand for you, but you took it without hesitation, using it to pull yourself closer to him until your side was pressed to his.

You felt him let out a little breath in preparation before requesting, “Tell me what happened.”

“He’s just so fucking-” You started off with a harsh, bitter tone, but cut yourself off instantly - despite how he’d hurt you, Sam was still Josh’s brother and it didn’t feel right. When you spoke again, it was more restrained and collected. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to leave and so we went into town on a date- I asked him if he wanted to and he didn’t tell me he couldn’t, Josh.”

He stiffened next to you, wearing a frightened look when you met his eyes. “Fuck. Is he okay- Is he still here?”

You closed your eyes and nodded. For some reason, the thing that suddenly choked you up was that you’d never heard Josh swear like that until it came to concern for his brother.

Since the fight with Sam, you’d been counting down the seconds until you could talk to Josh about it, but now that the moment was upon you, all you could muster was a weak, flat tone of explanation.

“Yes, he’s still here. Graywater called me into his office yesterday to question me about it. He was going to report it, but I convinced him not to.”

Josh’s features sloped into a puzzled frown as he cautiously asked, “Sam’s not in trouble at all?”

You breathed a humorless laugh and shook your head. “No.”

You tried not to feel upset at the relieved exhale Josh gave upon hearing that confirmation. “You took the blame for him?”

“Yep.”

There was a silent pause before he chanced, “And how did he take it?”

“Not well, Josh,” you stated sourly.

Josh let his eyes slip shut as he let out a long, frustrated sigh. He pinched the bridge of his nose and, in an exasperated whisper, he breathed to no one in particular, “Oh, no...Sam.”

“He was genuinely angry.” You waited a beat before admitting, “Granted, I was fucking mad at him for not telling me and putting me in that position in the first place, but I’m fucking stupid for expecting him to apologize.”

He shook his head at you, half-pleading, “Don’t do that to yourself. This isn’t your fault.”

You swallowed back a sob; you’d been carrying around so much guilt, that hearing him absolve you of it was like the snap of a rubber band. When he heard it, he wrapped an arm around your shoulders.

“It’s okay.” A deep frown was audible behind the assurance as he offered it to you.

You shook your head as best you could with your cheek against his shoulder. “It’s not.”

“Listen, I know this hurts - I can only imagine, but take a deep breath,” he requested, waiting until you did so to continue. “You’ve got a choice to make now. You can pack it up and walk away from whatever it is you two have - no one on earth could blame you for that. The summer will come to an end, you’ll go home, and you probably won’t ever see him again. This’ll all just morph into a fond memory some day.”

You should find that idea comforting, but instead, after a couple of silent seconds, you prompted, “Or?”

“Or, you could forgive him.”

You huffed exasperatedly. “It’s kinda hard to forgive someone that doesn’t understand how he’s fucked up.”

Josh shook his head and warned, “No, no. Don’t mistake his stubbornness for stupidity - he’s not stupid. I promise you that Sam knows exactly what he’s done. I’m willing to bet he’s sitting in his cabin beating the shit out of himself right now.”

“I don’t care,” you informed him flatly, prompting him to hum in amusement.

“I don’t either,” he agreed, making you crack a smile that he couldn’t see thanks to the position you were sitting in, leaning against him. “But, my point is - he does care. Despite his very poor choices, he cares about you a lot, which lands you on the very short list of people that can claim the same.”

“I don’t know,” you sighed, feeling the ache of grief at the thought. “Sometimes I think he only cares about himself.”

“I didn’t ask him to stay with you that night of the party,” he admitted after a silent moment of consideration, wearing a little smile. “I am guilty of some meddling between you two, but not that.”

You frowned, pulling your cheek off his shoulder so you could look at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I asked him to walk you back to your cabin that night because I was trying to see how much he’d do for you. I knew he was soft for you, but I wanted to know just how bad it was.”

“Did he tell you he liked me?” you tried, grasping for something to help you understand.

Josh snickered at you. “C’mon - he didn’t have to. I’ve seen the way he treats people he actually dislikes. If you genuinely don’t like someone, you go out of your way to not be around them. If you don’t like them, you don’t pick on them. All you two ever did was just rough flirting, as far as I could tell.”

Your eyes narrowed accusingly as you felt your face flush pink. “There were times when he was genuinely kinda mean to me.”

He rolled his eyes fondly, but you weren’t sure if it was meant for you or Sam. “That’s because he’s lousy at letting people in. I think he panicked when he realized how close he was to getting what he wanted.” He paused for a second and then pointedly added, “Which is obviously you.”

You stared at him as you tried to process what he was saying, but when you realized you didn’t have the energy or time necessary to do so, you asked, “So...the party?”

“Ah, right. So, when I asked him to walk you back to your cabin, I was hoping maybe it would help him realize that he had feelings for you, but I never expected him to stay with you,” Josh explained and then snorted a laugh. “You should have seen his face - the moment when he realized you’d told me he lied and said I made him stay. I swear to god he was ready to physically fight me if I brought it up to him, but I never did.”

“Are you gonna talk to him now?” you asked carefully, dreading the answer. The last thing you wanted was to create tension between the two of them, and you knew Sam would take that confrontation even more poorly than he had with you.

“No,” he assured. “I’m going to try as hard as I can to stay out of it unless he directly asks me for advice, but he won’t.”

You hummed, considering. “What if I never want to see him again? Can you and I still be friends?”

He frowned and then took your hand to give it a little squeeze. “Of course. We were friends before him.”

Offering him a smile was really all you could think to do. The truth was that you didn’t know how you wanted to proceed with Sam, but it made you feel full and warm to know that you’d always have a friend like Josh.

He did an excellent job of keeping you distracted for the rest of the day. You decided that, for your punishment, you’d work on cleaning up the beach; it wasn’t like people actively littered, but things would fall off boats or blow out of trash cans, make their way into the water, and inevitably end up strewn about the sand. Josh walked with you, picking up an odd piece of garbage here and there and tucking it into the bag you were carrying when you held it open for him.

As nice as it felt to be doing something good with a person that always made you feel at ease, the weight of your problems had a physical effect on you, and that grew tenfold, the moment you’d gotten back to your cabin. The knowledge that new campers would be showing up in the morning was like a looming fist hanging over you - not because you didn’t want to do this job, but simply because that meant you’d be forced to interact with Sam again.

The time came too soon. Counselors started getting lined up right after breakfast was finished, ready to be debriefed about the upcoming cycle of kids, but Sam didn’t show up until the last minute. You pointedly didn’t look at him directly, because, frankly, you didn’t want to know how he was doing.

You weren’t sure whether or not he’d hold his head high and pretend like nothing had happened, or if he’d look a little downtrodden, maybe even apologetic, but you didn’t care to know. You told yourself it wouldn’t make a difference anyway - you’d be able to maintain your coldness towards him, no matter what he appeared to be feeling, but you knew it was a lie. You knew that if he did look sad, it would only leave you with unwarranted guilt, and you refused to let that happen. As Sam took his place beside you, you glanced up at Josh to catch him giving you a sympathetic, tight little smile that you forced yourself to return.

The children were sweet and excited, which helped a great deal; it was hard to be angry when they were beaming toothy grins at each other. It served to remind you that, no matter what drama you were experiencing, it wasn’t fair to the children to let them shoulder the burden with you. They were there to have a fun, educational two weeks, and you decided then and there that you were going to set aside your issues with Sam whenever they were around, but that quickly proved to be easier said than done.

For the first couple of hours, you were able to go off on your own with your girls, getting acquainted with them, but that could only last so long. One timeslot before dinner, you were set to do a forest foliage activity as a whole team, and the entire day, you kept looking at your schedule like it would magically change. You tried to hype yourself up on the walk to the meeting place. You told yourself it would be okay - that all you had to do was remember how shitty he’d been to you, and it would be easy to stay hating him, but you were fucking wrong. You kept your eyes anywhere else but on him as you approached the group of boys, but it didn’t matter how justified your anger was - the second you met his gaze, you lost your grip on it.

He was standing with his hands in the pockets of his shorts, his hair tied back more carelessly than he usually opted for. If you hadn’t spent so much of the last few weeks studying his features, you surely wouldn’t have noticed the slight bags under his eyes. His face was void of an expression, but not in the controlled way he used to wear to convince you of how bored he was by it all - now, he just looked spent. He looked like a child’s toy that was nearing the end of its battery life.

When he met your stare, you realized that Josh was right - Sam was visibly perfectly aware of how he’d hurt you.

Naively, you’d been praying you’d look at him and feel disgusted. You’d sincerely hoped that you’d see his face and find that you didn’t want him anymore. You wanted the pain he’d inflicted to be enough to override the infatuation that once consumed your every passing second - but it didn’t. He let you hold his eyes for a few seconds before ripping them away to fix his focus on the ground, and that hurt so much worse than anything he’d done up to that point.

You weren’t sure what you were expecting - it wasn’t like he was going to rush up to you and pull you into his arms. It wasn’t even reasonable for you to expect that he’d apologize - not in front of all of these unknowing kids. Still, you were learning, more and more every day, that emotions don’t abide by the rules of logic. It didn’t make a difference - it still hurt.

You introduced him to your girls as the boys’ counselor but didn’t speak a word to Sam directly as you walked them through the ins and outs of regional wild plants. You barely had to consult your manual to teach them what was poisonous and some history about what certain things were once used for, all the while, reminding them that it was never okay to eat anything you found in the forest. Sam seemed more or less content to just let you take over, which, stupidly, also upset you. It was starting to become clear that there was nothing he could have done that wouldn’t piss you off - you’d have been seething if he’d chimed in without prompting.

At the end of the activity, you left any parting nicety unsaid and headed off to dinner separately. True to “first day” form, your girls stuck close to your side, carrying on a riveting conversation about iceberg lettuce as you lead them through the food line, and when it came time to pick a table, you breathed a sigh of relief to find that Josh was alone at a table with a few of his boys, working on opening milk cartons and sauce packets for them.

“Can we sit?” you asked him, receiving a slightly-confused smile back.

“Of course, make yourselves comfy.”

Quiet enough that only a few kids and Josh could hear, you added, “I guess I just wasn’t sure if you’d want to sit with Sam.”

He took on a sympathetic expression as he flicked his eyes across the room. You followed the direction to see Sam, sitting with his boys pooled around him towards the back corner of the hall. Another counselor you didn’t recognize was at the table too, but they weren’t interacting with anyone but their own campers.

Deep, deep within you, you felt bad, but you put on a cold expression, deciding to say nothing, lest something truly mean accidentally slip out. You were sure that it would only be a couple of days before his campers were off on their own and Sam was back to eating in his cabin.

For the rest of the meal, he went unmentioned. Instead, the Maple boys excitedly told you and your girls all about the farmette activity they’d just had with Josh, melting your chilled heart by gushing excitedly about the baby animals.

You leaned across the table towards a couple of them. Employing a playful, hushed tone as if it were a secret, you asked them, “Josh didn’t steal any kittens, did he?”

Josh let out a gasp of faux offense, putting his hand on his chest to exaggeratedly object. “I would never. How could you accuse me of something like that?”

Just as you’d hoped, that sent the group of kids sitting around you into fits of giggles, and for the first time in too long, everything felt okay.

❀❀❀

For the remainder of that week, you were successfully able to avoid speaking to Sam directly. Every day, he became less of a main character in your life, and every day, the anger subsided a little bit more.

You were still upset, of course; what he’d done had been shitty and wrong, but it wasn’t weighing you down like it once had. It used to feel like that fight had left you with a kind of heartache plague, but you found yourself going whole days without thinking of him unless your eyes were on him directly.

Your logical brain thought it would be efficient to plan it all out - if you kept letting go of a little anger at a time, you’d likely feel perfectly okay by the end of the summer. You still expected it would hurt when you dug into the memory of it, but that’s all he’d be - a memory.

Except, shit never works that way, and you, apparently, never learn. During a free period, you were getting some of your things organized in your room when there was a gentle knock on the door.

In honesty, you had such faith in it being Josh, that you hadn’t even considered you’d answer the door to see Sam standing in front of you in a pair of jean shorts and his yellow camp shirt.

“What?” You shocked yourself with how sharp your tone was, and you were suddenly grateful that all your girls were off on their own - they didn’t need to see you act like this.

In the opposite direction, he used a sheepish demeanor that was so unlike him that it took you off guard. “Hey,” he offered simply. “Should we go pack for the trip?”

You let your eyes slip shut in exasperation. In the pursuit of getting him off your mind, you’d forgotten all about the camping trip - it had slipped your thoughts so thoroughly, that you assumed he was there to apologize.

Instead of actively addressing the fact that you’d forgotten, you just shook your head, just on the wrong side of bitterness as you declined. “No, I’ll do it alone in a bit.”

He raised an eyebrow at you and asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

He pulled his eyes from your to roll them tiredly. “You’re really going to do all this work by yourself because you don’t want to be in the same room as me?”

“Yep. How does it feel?” you spat back, clearly referencing how he used to do the same to you.

You weren’t sure what you were expecting, but it wasn’t the way his shoulders slumped. You’d never seen him look so dejected, but it was pretty easy to deduce that he wasn’t trying to make you feel guilty - he was just past the point of being able to hold back his guilt.

“Bad,” he admitted simply. “But I’m not going to let you pack all that shit alone.”

Just like that, the fire was lit again. Your hands balled into fists as you sarcastically drawled, “Oh, you’re not going to let me?”

Shocking you, yet again, Sam offered no hostility to match yours; if he was angry, you saw no evidence of it. He put his hands up in surrender.

“Listen, let’s just go do this and get it over with. You don’t have to like me - you don’t even have to be cordial, but I’m here to help.”

As much as it pained you to acknowledge, even in your own head, he was right. But, who the fuck was he to suddenly be acting like a responsible adult? That’s what you’d wanted from day one, but the character development now?

It felt like a slight.

You let out a suspiciously tight scoff, and you rolled your eyes dramatically to hide the fact that they were starting to water.

“Fine, whatever. I’ll meet you down there in fifteen,” you informed him coldly, turning on your heel and shutting the door in his face.

You heard his shoes crunching up the rocky dirt as he walked away from the cabins, and you waited until the sound was faint enough before letting out a choked-back sob. You counted yourself lucky that it was solitary - you were able to push everything else back after you dabbed at your eyes.

You considered standing him up as you surveyed yourself in your bathroom mirror, just to make damn sure he wasn’t clued into how that interaction had affected you. In the end, you decided it would be beyond childish - you were still a counselor, this was still your job, and he was still your partner, no matter how deeply and thoroughly you lamented it.

When you showed up to the dining hall, he was already in the kitchen, pulling down the familiar red cooler from the shelves. The only acknowledgment you received upon entering was his eyes flicking up from his task to meet yours, and only for a split second, but that was fine by you.

The room was tense and uncomfortable as you both silently packed. You made sure to be conscious of where he was so you could keep a good distance between the two of you, but you must have lost track of him at some point - you turned to grab the ice packs out of the freezer and ran directly into him. Your chests collided, knocking the breath from your lungs and sending the ice packs skittering across the tile with the solid impact.

It was exactly like that first day of camp, except this time, he was the one wearing an apologetic grimace, waiting for you to snap. He had ahold of your arms as he steadied you, but you pulled away from his touch out of panic and stumbled back against the island in the middle of the kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, causing you to exasperatedly shake your head.

“It’s fine,” you dismissed flatly, nodding your chin towards the door. “Go. I can get the rest.”

Out of your peripheral vision, you could see him staring at you in disappointed uncertainty for a few prolonged seconds before exiting the room. To your deep dismay, soon after he was gone, you found that it didn’t feel as satisfying to be alone as you hoped it would.

The next day was the worst you’d had on the grounds of Camp Forest Springs. From the moment breakfast was over, you were stuck with Sam. He was with you while you collected the packed coolers, and he brought up the rear on the walk out to the campsite. He was there, falling into the routine of crafting a fire in the pit and right by your side as you prepared the food, and you were forced into learning a tough lesson: All the progress you’d thought you’d made with unraveling your feelings for him was simply because you’d been able to create physical distance between the two of you. You hadn’t had to see him. Or hear his voice. Or smell him when he was close enough, but suddenly, it was like you were bound to him.

The entire time you were out there, you’d been dreading bedtime. On one hand, going to bed would mean that this experience was almost over. On the other, it meant you were nearing a milestone; for the past three cycles, you’d met him outside in the middle of the night. It had become an unspoken tradition that you once looked forward to.

But, as you slipped into your sleeping bag, the only thing you could think of was the conversation you’d had with Josh when he got back from break. You had a choice to make. Foolishly, you hoped maybe Sam wouldn’t do it - that maybe he’d spare you the burden, but there was no such luck; about an hour after you’d gone to bed, you heard the tell-tale rustling sound of him sneaking out of his tent.

You squeezed your eyes shut, pursing your lips anxiously. Multiple times, you considered going out to talk to him - just because you would meet him out there didn’t mean you’d have to forgive him, right? You could have it both ways - you could keep your dignity by staying mad and still go out to see him, right?

It was nothing but a pretty lie you were trying to convince yourself of. You wanted to forgive him - you missed him and the way he talked and his unguarded, goofy laugh, but you had to protect yourself.

With your face buried into the fabric of your pillow, you tried to keep quiet as you cried, but it became increasingly difficult when, after about twenty minutes of waiting for you, he made his way back to his tent and slipped inside. You weren’t sure how long you laid there, struggling to breathe through your choked sobbing, but one thing was for sure - you’d certainly made a choice.

❀❀❀

You couldn’t bring yourself to meet Sam’s eyes the next morning, but he didn’t seem to be going out of his way to get your attention. Maybe he was hoping you hadn’t heard him last night, either to spare himself the embarrassment of being rejected or to hold onto the hope that everything was still going to work itself out.

The guilt ate you alive to the point that you texted Josh to come to your cabin during your first free period the following day. He arrived chipper as usual but his expression fell the second he realized you’d been crying again.

You did your best to explain it all to him, but he had to put in some effort to make out certain parts when you got too choked up to speak properly.

“I feel so fucking bad,” you told him once you felt like you could catch your breath. “How do people get through this and still function?”

He hummed through a sympathetic smile. “Love’s just like that. But, I would like to also point out - you’re getting through it and functioning.”

You barked out a humorless laugh. “Barely. If you could call this ‘functioning’.”

“Well, I’ve yet to see you let the quality of your work slip. But, maybe you should think about what this means. Maybe you feel this bad right now because you don’t want to let him go.” While he spoke, he rubbed comforting circles into your back with a firm palm.

You groaned, tipping your head back in frustration. “Don’t tell me that.”

There was an amused little tilt to his lips as he replied, “I don’t think I have to. I think you already know.” He paused a second before cautiously continuing. “It hurts this bad because you love him.”

You shot him a look that was supposed to be an accusatory glare but ended up as a pleading frown. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

“I’m not saying you have to or even should. I’m just saying - I think you should hear him out.”

“Okay, but first he would actually have to apologize.”

“If he apologizes,” Josh agreed with a nod. “But I have a feeling that he will.”

You weren’t as sure, but in the moment, the affirmation helped ease a little of the ache, so you let it slide.

❀❀❀

Sam stayed true to his unspoken stance on letting you eat your meals in peace, even when your and Josh’s kids started branching off on their own, leaving open seats at your table. Even you had to admit, it was kinda sweet. Whenever he’d avoided eating meals with you in the past, it was so he could be alone in his cabin, but he surprised you by sticking by his kids, letting them plant themselves next to him for every mealtime.

More to his credit, even with you giving him the coldest possible atmosphere every time he was within twenty feet of you, he stayed cordial - open, even - to your attention, should you choose to give it to him. The dynamic stayed like that for a couple of days, but you could feel the tension starting to build.

It didn’t feel hostile at all - at least, not on his part. You could feel him looking at you, either staring absently or sneaking quick peeks when he thought you were focused on something else.

The dam finally broke on the last day of that cycle. The special activity was making tie-dyed t-shirts with your kids, and while it was fun to watch them get really excited about all the possible colors, you knew the second they announced it that it was going to be a monumental mess. Everyone was given rain ponchos and medical gloves, but that didn’t help with the kid that accidentally splashed lime green on your face as you were bent over to help her.

She had obviously not done it on purpose and she was immediately apologetic, but you were left trying to wipe the little dots of pigment from your cheeks in the camera of your phone. You were so focused on yourself on the little screen that you hadn’t realized Sam was standing right in front of you until you heard him speak.

“You should leave it - I think it suits you,” he suggested with a little smile, far too playful for what the nature of your current relationship called for. You lowered your phone to find him visibly questioning whether that was an okay thing to say, and it took everything in you to pretend it wasn’t charming, because you sure as fuck wished it weren’t.

As punishment for cracking your resolve so easily, you kept a blank expression as you stared directly into his eyes and let him stew in the tense uncertainty for a few long seconds before asking, “What do you want?”

He worried his lips together at your sharp tone before he worked up the courage to meekly joke, “All business these days, huh?” When he realized you were only going to stare impatiently for a few more fleeting moments before he would lose his chance, he cleared his throat and softly asked, “I’m just hoping- Can we talk?”

Despite Josh’s words about “hearing him out” ringing in your head, before you could stop it, you snapped, “No.”

He frowned for only a second before breathing a nervous laugh and trying again. “Okay, can I talk and you listen?”

After wrestling with yourself, you let out a long, relenting sigh. “Talk,” you allowed through an impatient tone.

Looking genuinely relieved, he glanced around to make sure no campers were within earshot, but all of them were preoccupied, having spread out and spilled over into other groups to socialize.

He briefly gathered his thoughts and then admitted, “I miss you. A lot.”

It wasn’t what you were expecting him to say, and you would have found it repulsively unacceptable if it weren’t for the genuine emotion behind it. It was quiet and breathy. Humble. He was lowering himself to you in a way he never had before.

It didn’t make everything right, but it did get your attention. Still, you weren’t going to let him off the hook that easily, even if he did look particularly lovely with his hair freshly washed and wavy as the summer breeze brushed the tips of it against his collarbones.

“Did Josh put you up to this?” you asked, keeping your tone from letting on that a part of you desperately wanted to forget every undesirable thing he’d ever said or done.

He drew in a slow breath as he figured out how he wanted to answer. “I was under the impression that the right way to approach the situation was to leave you alone. Y’know, since you really seemed like you wanted to be...left..alone.”

The explanation was choppy as he pulled the thought from his lagging brain.

“I just wanted to show you that I could respect that,” he continued, finally answering your question before adding, “But he told me that was ‘fucking stupid’ - his words, not mine.”

That was what did it. You weren’t quick enough to stop the smile that broke your façade but seeing it seemed to give him a cautious optimism that was almost worth it. You schooled your expression back to something serious just a second later to press him further. “Okay, but were you just not going to apologize to me?”

“Honest to god, I really thought you’d see me coming to you to apologize as selfish - like you think I was only doing it so I could rid myself of some of the guilt.”

You scanned his features for sincerity, not rushing yourself, even though he was visibly anxious. When you decided he was being genuine, you stated, “That’s also ‘fucking stupid’.”

A tired little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he nodded. “Yeah, he said the same thing.” After a beat of him realizing you were waiting on him to continue, he hurried to add, “So, I intended to come over here today to just apologize to you - I was going to tell you that you don’t have to be nice to me or forgive me, but- Well, I’m bad at this. So, when I opened my mouth, that’s...obviously not what came out.”

You huffed a humorless laugh and rolled your eyes. “It still hasn’t come out, and I’ve been listening to you talk for like two minutes - which is a hell of a lot longer than you deserve.”

He quickly nodded. “I know. I am sorry, but I don’t think I can give the heartfelt apology you deserve without attracting some attention. So, I was hoping we could talk again tomorrow. In private.” He paused for comedic effect and then playfully finished with, “Y’know, in case I cry.”

He was right - if you were ever going to get the emotion from him that you were owed, you were going to have to have the comfort of privacy. Just because you didn’t want him thinking he was off the hook, you rolled your eyes, though there was a shade of fondness buried in the gesture despite your wishes. “Fine.”

The breath he let out was visibly relieved as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jean shorts. You nodded at the bright purple dye splattered down his upper arm, visible due to him having ripped the sleeves off his t-shirt at some point in the past.

“But, you’re probably gonna wanna wash that off sooner rather than later.”

He glanced down to the spot and a genuine smile spread across his mouth, like he was tickled-fucking-pink to be talking about literally anything else. You figured that was a pretty good time to make your exit, before he could coax any more niceties out of you.

❀❀❀

You spent the next morning seeing your campers off, making sure to not meet Sam’s eyes from across the dirt pick-up area - you didn’t want him assuming he had any place in your thoughts, even though he was all you thought about half the time.

He hadn’t given you any specific time he was planning to stop by, so after getting back to your cabin, you took a long shower, deciding that you weren’t going to plan your day around him. As you washed off all the sweat and dirt, you tried to mentally prepare yourself for whatever was going to spill out his mouth, and at the end, you had a renewed sense of confidence. You reminded yourself that he was just coming over to apologize. You were under no obligation to forgive him or even treat him kindly, even if he was making an honest effort.

He finally showed up about halfway through the day, giving you a tight little smile as you swung open the cabin door. Instead of greeting him, you stepped aside as a prompt for him to enter, and he did so wordlessly.

You leaned back against the shut door and stared at him until he figured out that you were waiting for him to speak, and upon that realization, he started in a haste.

“Sorry that it took me so long. I wanted to give you time to enjoy being child-free again,” he explained and then continued with cautious hopefulness. “I think you’d be proud of me - I already took all the laundry down to be washed.”

“I suppose I would be if circumstances were different,” you admitted, crossing your arms over your chest protectively. “But they’re not.”

He let out a long breath, cast his eyes to the knotted wooden floor and then nodded. “You’re right.”

“You know, it’s not even about you not telling me you weren’t supposed to leave the grounds - that was obviously shitty of you, but I could have forgiven you easily enough. But, having you get angry at me for trying to help fix your fuck up was fucking heartbreaking, Sam.”

“I know,” he spoke softly, but you just shook your head at him.

“No, I don’t think you do,” you objected, starting to feel your sinuses sting with the threat of tears that you immediately worked to fight off. “I thought we were so far past that. We’d been spending so much time together and everything felt so easy with you for the first time. I finally didn’t feel like I was walking on eggshells to try and stay in your good graces.”

After taking some time to process what you were saying, he finally looked you in the eye and, in the most sincere tone you’d ever heard him use, he told you, “I’m sorry. You deserved better than that. There’s really no suitable excuse, so I won’t try to make one up, but I hate knowing I hurt you like that. I regretted it instantly but I was too much of a prideful jackass to apologize before you left.”

You were pretty sure he was done speaking until he seemed to remember something and then sucked in a quick breath before adding, “And, thank you. I know I would be sitting in a jail cell right now if it weren’t for you sticking your neck out.”

Admittedly, you weren’t sure what to say. You’d been worried you’d be tempted to forgive him instantly - without question, but you found no such temptation. You nodded at him, offering only a little “okay”.

He looked just a little disappointed in this interaction ending this way, but he was making an honest effort to hide it, which you appreciated - you couldn’t handle having to feel guilty on top of everything else. Thankfully, he left without another word, only tossing you the same tight smile he’d been wearing upon entering your cabin.

❀❀❀

When you told Josh all about what happened, he seemed earnestly happy for you and Sam both that the worst part was behind you. “It’s all uphill from here,” he’d said, but you weren’t so sure. Sure, maybe the worst part was behind you, but that didn’t mean anything past that would be pleasant.

Sam stuck true to his word - you never felt like he was trying to butter you up or work his way back into your good graces. He actually hadn’t even addressed you about anything other than work until the day before this cycle’s camping trip.

When he showed up at your door to ask if you were ready to pack up the food, he’d offered to meet you down in the kitchen like you had last time, but you declined. After all, it was silly to make you each walk there separately when you were headed to the same place at the same time.

Neither of you said a word as you paced the trails, but it wasn’t uncomfortable the way it had been before. Finally, after months of this, he felt like your co-worker. Just your co-worker. It was what you’d thought you’d wanted from the beginning, but you found you didn’t like him like this very much either. Which left you with an odd dilemma. You hated having Sam as your adversary, but you didn’t like having him as a friend either - not after everything you’d experienced with him. It felt incomplete.

But, you didn’t know if you had it in you to truly forgive him. Or to let yourself love him again, not in the unbridled way you had before.

As you pulled food from the cabinet and set it on the kitchen island to be sorted and packed away, for the first time in a while, you heard him let out a quiet sigh. You couldn’t see his expression because he was facing the fridge, but it was quick, as if he were preparing himself for something.

He spun around on his heel and met your eyes, wearing a smile that didn’t quite cover the concern in his eyes. “I have something to say.”

“I can see that,” you noted with a nod, keeping your tone a little flat but not cold. “Say it, then.”

His eyes flicked around as he sunk his top row of teeth into his bottom lip. “Look, I’ve never been good at talking about my feelings. I’m kind of notorious for it actually,” he unnecessarily informed you with an anxious-sounding laugh. “I always trip myself up thinking that I’m not going to be able to put my thoughts to words so I just don’t even try.”

He saw your features slip into a slight frown in your confusion, so he rushed himself to figure out how to continue.

“I guess I’m just trying to say that the thing we do on the camping night - where we slip out of our tents and meet- It’s something I...didn’t realize meant something to me until you didn’t show up last time and I guess I just wanted to know if we could...go back to doing that.”

As you fixed your eyes on the floor, you licked your lips absently, having to use every bit of your brainpower to not show him what that question had done to you; you were feeling butterflies again. You’d really convinced yourself that you wouldn’t feel that way about him again, but it was always a lie and you knew it. The proof was in the way your heart was racing.

You’d been expecting him to walk it back as soon as he’d seen your hesitation, but, to his credit, he just waited patiently for your reply.

You opened your mouth to tell him you weren’t sure, but what came out was a rather struggled admission of, “Sam, you’re fucking killing me.” It shocked you to have said it, but it shocked him enough that he sucked in a sharp breath and then let the stainless steel fridge door hold his weight as he concernedly but cautiously asked, “What do you mean?”

As you stared at him, you could feel your eyebrows knitted together in a deep-set, distressed frown. “Do you really think I want nothing to do with you now? You think I went from wishing you were my honest-to-god boyfriend to suddenly actually despising you?” The tone of your voice came out desperate, but you didn’t have the capacity to care as his eyes widened.

“Sam, it has taken everything I’ve got to keep you at a distance. Aside from the fact that we work together in close proximity every single day, I fucking miss you too.” In your despair, you’d said it all but the one thing that you’d been keeping for yourself, but you realized, at that exact moment, that you could never move forward until you told him, “I loved you, Sam. I- I still do, but I don’t think I can go through that again. I know it’s dramatic and it makes me sound crazy, which is why I decided to bury it all, but I’ve never experienced anything that hurt the way that did.”

He looked like he was barely breathing as he ran his hands through his hair, his breathing suddenly choppy and labored.

“You’ve taught me a lot of hard lessons, Sam, and I am currently trying my very fucking best to learn them.”

It fell silent between the two of you for just a second before he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Please don’t let that be what you take away from this.” He gestured between the two of you with his pointer finger.

The laugh you let out was tinged with just a shade of bitterness as you asked, “What do you want me to take from it?”

Even though it seemed like the logical next step in the conversation, the question took him off guard. He stared at you in silence for a few prolonged moments as his bottom lip hung open an inch or so. The moment he decided on an answer was visible, but even then, he had to take a quick breath before admitting, “Me.”

Unsure as to what he was implying, you naturally took on a puzzled expression, forcing him to clarify, “I want you to take me with you. Even as ‘just a friend’.”

You pursed your lips together as you held his gaze - you were hoping to find some kind of deception behind his eyes so that you could reject him and still feel like you did the right thing, but the only thing you found was sincerity. Even though the shade of his eyes was altered by the harsh, fluorescent lighting, it was still Sam - the soft Sam that he’d accidentally let you get to know.

It hurt. You suddenly felt so choked that you had to work on shoving back the lump in your throat. You shook your head at him, unsure to your very core about what your next step should be.

“I don’t know, Sam. I don’t know if I can be ‘just your friend’,” you informed him sorrowfully.

“Will you try?” he asked, the hope evident in both his eyes and his cadence. He was doing everything right - he wasn’t putting guilt or pressure on you. Nothing he was doing felt manipulative or as if there were an ulterior motive behind it. He was speaking with you in the most respectful manner possible and that realization put a sour look on your face.

“Why couldn’t you have just done this in the first place?” you lamented, gesturing to him with an open palm. “Absolutely none of this would have had to happen if you’d just been this person with me. Why does it seem like this honesty is coming to you so easily now - after you’ve already done the damage?”

He seemed to take the question to heart. He let his eyes slip shut and his head tip back as he took a deep, shaking breath, finally past the point of trying to control your perception of him. “I can’t take it back, babe,” he informed you apologetically but as soon as the term of endearment slipped from his mouth, he looked you over to make sure you didn’t react negatively. When he realized you were going to let it go unaddressed, he continued, “But you have to know I regret it, right?”

“Of course, you do,” you agreed with a firm frown of grief, leaving all the rest unsaid.

The room fell silent, save for the whirring sound of the refrigerator, leaving the two of you to feel the weight of the words you’d shared. After a while, he let out a sigh of surrender and anxiously scratched at the back of his neck.

“Look, I’m going to be honest - I’m not sure what to do here. I don’t know where the line is between ‘communicating my regrets and trying to make amends’ and ‘being a fucking nuisance’ so...” He trailed off before starting again, his tone even more gentle this time. “I’ve laid it all out for you. You know I still want you - however you’ll take me. The rest is up to you.”

He didn’t wait for a response before offering you a weak but honest smile and turning back to the task of collecting the condiments. For the next moment, he busied himself to show you he could respectfully move on from the moment, but you remained stagnant, just taking him in like this.

Obviously unsure as to why you were just staring at him, unmoving, he snuck a look at you out of the corner of his eye and then curiously pivoted to face you again.

You weren’t really sure what you were going to say when you opened your mouth, but it just naturally slipped out anyway. “I’ll think about it, Sam,” you stated, more confidently than you felt as you nodded tightly.

You could see the way your assurance changed his posture - defeated and droopy to pulling in a hopeful breath until his lungs were full. Just because you felt like he’d truly earned it, you quietly told him, “And thank you. For trying.”

As much as he was trying to downplay it, a wistful smile found his lips, effectively melting the ice you’d built around him in your mind just a little more. He gave you a nod and this time, when you both went back to packing, it didn’t feel quite so heavy.

The trip out to the campsite felt easier this time around. It wasn’t as fun or exciting as it would have been if you were on the same terms with him as you’d been at any point before the fight, but it also didn’t feel like a grim death march like the last time either so you counted it as a win.

He wasn’t as timid with you anymore either, which, to your deep surprise, was a relief. You’d thought it would be upsetting to look at him and not see him looking like a guilty puppy, but it wasn’t at all. That’s why, as you tucked into your sleeping bag for the night, you didn’t zip it - “just in case”, you’d told yourself.

It felt a little like deja vu as you lay awake, waiting with bated breath as you strained your ears. The night was calm and quiet, but you were irrationally afraid you were going to miss it - you weren’t sure you even wanted to meet with him that night, but you didn’t want to be robbed of the decision either.

You hadn’t realized you’d started to doze until you were swiftly pulled from your sleep by the familiar rustling, and the second you heard the sound of his footfall on the dirt, you started to shrug out of your sleeping bag.

Sam was sitting on the same log you always found him on, but he clearly was not expecting you - when he heard you slip through the tent flap, his head whipped around to show you his surprised face outlined by the moonlight. You kept a relatively flat expression as you sat next to him, leaving a few inches in between the two of you; then you just folded your hands in your lap and fixed your eyes on them.

You could feel him studying your face, charmingly trying to figure out if it was safe to let himself feel hopeful, but the relief was audible, even through a whisper as he admitted, “I can’t believe you came.”

You glanced at him out of the corner of your eye and cautiously allowed your lips to turn up into a little smile. “No? Do you think I shouldn’t have?”

He immediately opened his mouth to reply but then stopped himself abruptly. After taking a second to chew it over, he let out the most sheepish laugh you’d ever heard from him, breathy and nervous. “I don’t think that’s for me to answer. Do I think I deserve whatever you’re giving me right now?” he asked rhetorically, and then instantly answered himself, “Probably not. But I’m...indescribably happy to see you.”

There was something you had to get off your chest, but it was a struggle to get yourself to say it. You bit your lip and dug deep inside of yourself to admit, “I’m self-conscious that I’ve overreacting.”

Once he realized what you were suggesting, he shook his head so quickly and fervently that you could only deduce that he was afraid to even let that idea hang in the air. Sam took a big, risky chance; without hesitation, he planted his hand on your jaw to turn your face to him, forcing you to look directly into his eyes and there was absolutely no way for you to voice what that did to you.

The wind picked up just then, graciously muffling the sounds of your voices and eliminating the risk of the kids hearing you over the rustling of debris and leaves.

“Don’t,” he half-pleaded, innocently leaning in a little closer to you so you wouldn’t miss what he was saying. “Don’t do that. I hurt you. I knew how much this job meant to you- means to you and I still risked leaving the grounds without telling you what we were risking, and that’s bad enough.” He paused, grimacing as he considered the right words. “But, then, you put out the fucking fire for me. I can just hear you talking to the director in that way that you do - diplomatic and informed, reasoning with him to spare whatever punishment I undeniably deserve.” There was a hint of a dreamy tone under the desperation and haste to get it all out and the sound of it suddenly had you struggling to choke back tears.

“Just- Please, don’t blame yourself for this to justify wanting to forgive me. I hurt you. I’d love for us to be okay but that’s not the way to do it.”

You held his stare for too long, waiting for your tongue to speak without you having to come up with the right words. When that didn’t happen, all you could do was rasp out, “Okay.”

His eyes darted back and forth between yours like he was searching for a thread - anything to give him clarity as to what that meant for the two of you, but even you didn’t know. You let him struggle for only a couple of seconds before cracking a smile that instantly softened him further.

“Okay?” he tried, hopeful despite himself.

You nodded at him, slowly reaching to brush a strip of hair from where it had fallen from the lazy bun he’d tied it into. To your surprise, it didn’t hurt as much as you’d thought it would when you whispered, “I forgive you.”

He froze as you watched him visibly wrestle with the choice before deciding to use his hand under your jaw to guide you to him. You held your breath, your heart racing as you realized he was probably about to kiss you, but he didn’t. He spared you the burden of having to make a split-second decision about whether or not it was appropriate for him to rush you into something so romantically intimate, and instead, he met you in the middle to lay his forehead against yours.

You could feel him preparing to say something meaningful, but the moment slipped past in silence. The two of you stayed like that for a few prolonged moments until he pulled away.

This time, looking at his face was different. It was almost as if speaking the intention to forgive him had magically pulled it into existence. Out of everything that had happened between you since your conversation in the kitchen, none of it made sense to your logical brain, but that was just another perfect bullet point for the lesson you were learning about how lawless emotions are by nature.

“So, there’s this building on the edge of my hometown,” he started, piquing your interest with his casual tone. “And you know how every town has that one decrepit place that’s famously forbidden and you’ve heard twenty different stories about it? It’s always like ‘a guy went crazy and murdered his family in that house’ or ‘a kid got lost in this old mine and they never found him’.”

You hummed an agreement, giving him a confused look that caused him to chuckle, pursing his lips to muffle it lest the two of you get too loud.

“So, in my hometown, that obligatory location is this shack-like building out in the woods. There’s so much bullshit lore that locals have tied to this place but the one thing we know is that it was a tiny church a long time ago. It hasn’t been maintained for decades - like, the wood siding is covered in moss and shit or has just degraded completely in some places. The windows are boarded over and it smells like mold inside and there’s broken glass and loose nails all over.”

You couldn’t help but let out a breathy laugh at the absurdity of the situation, and he matched it, obviously finding amusement in stringing you along blindly.

“Well, that lovely place I’m describing is apparently the perfect venue for parties, but the land it’s on is owned by the city now and the city is pretty serious about keeping people away from it because it’s obviously not a structurally safe place for anyone to be, let alone a bunch of drunken young people, but there’s no real way for the city to prevent people from partying there because any amount of money spent on security would be a waste. So, I’m sure you’re wondering why they haven’t just torn the shit hole down, right?” he prompted.

Either Sam was just a great storyteller or the story itself was out of place enough to catch and hold your interest, but either way, you were invested. You took the moment to tease him by playing along and cheekily asking, “Sam, why haven’t they just torn the shit hole down?”

You weren’t expecting it, but as he smirked at your antics, he took your chin between his fingers to hold you still as he answered. “Because, next to the church, there’s a little bitty cemetery. There are two slabs left that are obviously headstones - completely unreadable - but who knows how many people are actually buried there. In order for the city to be able to clear the lot, they’d have to find records of the bodies and remove them very carefully and then there’s the issue of how the fuck they’d even locate and get in touch with the families of these people- Anyway, the city just tacks up ‘No Trespassing’ signs all over the property and nails the door shut every now and again to discourage people from snooping, but other than that, they just leave the place alone and hope that the church will decay enough that it collapses of natural causes.”

He let go of your chin somewhere in the middle of that last part of the explanation, but you could still feel the effects of being handled by him like that, making it difficult to function in the way you wanted to. You struggled to find the impressed tone that you were looking for, instead stumbling over the statement, “Wow. You know a lot about this building.”

His pink little smirk stretched into a satisfied smile as he nodded. Using an intentionally pointed tone, he sounded beyond pleased to inform you, “Well, I ought to, because I burned the place to the ground last year.”

Before you’d even decided if you’d heard him right, your fingers anxiously found your lips as your eyes widened. “Oh my god,” was all you could think to say.

He nodded, and there was a distinct lack of regret behind it.

“Why?!”

“I want to say it was all just bad luck, but that’d be a lie and, per Josh’s suggestion, I’m trying this new thing where I take responsibility for the shitty things I do,” he teased, making you breathe a laugh despite your shock. “So, a friend of a friend was having a going away party because he was joining the military. Or...maybe it was that he just got back from deployment? I can’t remember because I didn’t want to go, but I do remember thinking that it was a really bad idea from the start. Everything was really dry last summer - like we were nearing ‘drought’ territory during this period, and here these assholes were, lighting a fucking bonfire in the middle of this crispy-ass grass, surrounded by a dry forest. It was a tinderbox. Smokey the fucking bear couldn’t have come up with a better scenario for a fire-related mishap. And, I know you’re clever enough to figure out what happens next.”

You shook your head, giving him an expectant look. “I mean, obviously a fire breaks out, but was everyone okay?”

“Yeah, mostly everyone bailed. It’s the rural Midwest, so I’m sure a lot of people had hard drugs on them or in them that they didn’t want to get caught with.”

You were stunned silent for a few moments. “You were worried that I was going to find your arrest boring?”

He nodded coyly, a bit too matter-of-fact for that to be the end of it.

“Getting arrested for burning down a church is maybe the most interesting thing I can think of,” you argued, struggling to keep your voice low in your state of disbelief.

“Well, that’s because I didn’t get arrested for burning down a church,” he informed you, making your expression fall flat quickly and dramatically enough to pull a laugh that threatened on “full volume” from his lips.

“What the fuck do you mean?”

With a faux-innocent smile as your own consolation, he stated, “I got arrested a month later for driving high.”

You narrowed your eyes to stare at him accusingly. “Then what the fuck was the point of that whole long-ass story?”

“Because I told myself if you met me out here tonight, I’d tell you what I got arrested for, but getting arrested for driving high is boring, so I thought I’d lead with the most interesting story I could think of - which is 100% true, by the way.”

Yet again, you wanted to be angry with yourself for finding the whole thing charming, but before you could say a word, he added, “Plus, I’ve missed being this physically close to you and I’m, admittedly, kind of selfish so I wanted to draw this moment out as long as possible.”

Still in a state of disbelief, you sat up straight, fighting to keep a shocked smile from your lips and failing miserably. You shook your head at him disapprovingly but there wasn’t a single shred of hard feelings to grab at anymore, making his next line unnecessary.

“Remember how you used to fish so hard for information about me? Well, you got some,” he stated, smirking. “And there’s plenty more to fish for if you’d still like to keep me around- As a friend.”

He’d added the last bit as an assurance, making sure you knew he wasn’t expecting anything from you, but you were digging your fingers into the meat of your leg to keep from touching him.

Your throat was tight, giving your voice a rasp as you told him, “I don’t wanna be your friend.”

His expression had just started slipping into a showcase of his disappointment when he realized what you were actually implying. You could feel him staring at you and how your eyes were fixed on his lips, making him sound a little desperate as he asked, “Can I kiss you?”

You glanced over your shoulder towards the tents, but you wanted it just as badly as him, so you didn’t have to think about it too hard when he framed your face with his hands and half-pleaded, “One kiss isn’t going to hurt anything- Please.”

You nodded at him fervently but you didn’t wait for him to make a move; instead, you just leaned in and pressed your lips to his. It was a little rough, but you weren’t complaining because the rush of serotonin through your veins felt like a wave of warm water. You chased the feeling by wrapping your arms around the back of his neck and found that, somehow, that felt even better.

He didn’t show any signs of objection as you broke the kiss to hook your chin over his shoulder, feeling his nose nuzzle into the hair by your ear. You sat and soaked in the moment for a few long seconds before sitting up so you could look into his eyes.

You had to work to school your face into a serious, stern expression as you informed him, “If you ever hurt me like that again, I’m going to fuck your brother.”

Just like you were hoping for, a deeply shocked smile found his lips, but before he could make any kind of quip, you added some comedic relief by clarifying, “Not Josh - the other one. Josh 2.”

A hand flew up to catch a sharp laugh as it fell out of his mouth. “Jake, but okay. I guess that’s fair,” he informed you in the fondest tone.

“Damn right,” you agreed and then stood, holding your hand out to pull him up too. “Well, Samuel, this was a shockingly pleasant way to kill half an hour or so, but we should get to bed.”

He offered you only a smile in allowance, but you pulled him into another hug when you reached the tents that he returned in a way that you could only describe as grateful, but you’d only hugged him so you could press your lips to his ear. “Find me again when the kids are gone this weekend,” you instructed and felt his fingers flex against your back in a very uncontrolled way.

You placed a kiss against his cheek that you could only assume he found frustratingly chaste and then slipped into your tent.

❀❀❀

You arrived to dinner before Josh the next evening, giving you plenty of time to think. As your eyes scanned over the bustling dining hall and saw how many of the campers had formed their own groups, leaving their counselors to eat with their coworkers, you couldn’t help but feel the sting of the realization that it was almost over. In just a couple of weeks, you’d have to start looking for a different job - one that could never, ever compare.

You tried to push the feeling down, lest your eyes start to water in such a public place.

Luckily, you weren’t alone for too much longer; just a moment later, Josh opened the doors for his kids and ushered them all in with a sweet smile, pointing them towards the food line despite them having gotten the routine down a week and a half ago. His boys scattered to sit in their own little clusters but Josh could always be counted on to take the seat across from you.

“So, how was the camping trip?” he asked, and something behind his chipper tone told you he was somehow more informed than he ought to be.

You offered him a fond smile and shook your head. “It sounds like you already know how it went,” you replied before popping a slice of an orange into your mouth.

“I have a hunch,” he allowed cheekily.

“How? How do you seem to know everything before I do?”

He shrugged, though he looked proud despite his casual response. “A couple of reasons. One - neither of you are as difficult to read as you think you are. And, two - Sam asked for my advice on the subject.”

“Oh?” you pressed, eliciting a nod of his head.

“Well, I guess I kind of forced my advice on him, actually,” A grin spread across his lips and he split his dinner roll to butter it. “If I didn’t practically kick his butt after your fight, I’m not sure he would have made any moves to fix it. Not that he didn’t want to,” he quickly added. “I just know that, when he fucks up socially, he tends to remove himself from the equation so he can’t make it worse.”

“Or, perhaps because he’s too ashamed to confront it,” you suggested, trying to sound flat but accidentally letting a scolding fondness taint the words.

“Sure,” Josh agreed, endearingly struggling to get the little packet of butter open. “I have no doubt that was part of it. All I’m saying is, I know he wanted to make it better - he just didn’t know how, so I gave him a...let’s say ‘gentle nudge’.”

You breathed a laugh. “Well, thank you. And, yes, things feel better,” you agreed, after a moment, adding, “I missed him a lot.”

A smile, maybe too pleased for someone mostly unaffected by the situation, spread across his lips.

When Sam walked in just a minute later, all his kids in tow, he met your eyes for only a second before helping his boys through the line, leaving you in your infatuation over what a good counselor he’d become over the last few weeks. He sat across from you, next to Josh, and you were relieved to find that it instantly felt comfortable, thanks to Josh’s flawless sense for directing conversation.

The special activity for that cycle ended up being a hike out to a special location on the campgrounds that you’d always loved as a child, called Blueberry Bog. It was a glacially-formed kettle bog; the water was covered in soft, vibrant green moss that acted almost like a trampoline. The kids were pretty underwhelmed until they were informed that they didn’t have to stay on the wooden boardwalk - that they could go out onto the moss and explore. You watched with the kind of satisfaction you’d imagine a parent would have, listening to the kids squeal as their feet squished into the plush surface.

The following day was supposed to bring rain, and it didn’t disappoint in that regard. When you’d woken up to your alarm, you could hear the sound of thunder in the distance, and when you’d gotten out to the main room of your cabin, a few of the girls were already at the windows, watching the lightning streak across the sky. You’d all raced down to the dining hall with your coats over your heads to keep as dry as you could, and after breakfast, that was where their parents came to pick them up. The “goodbyes” were getting harder and harder, and this time you had to take deep breaths in between children to prevent yourself from crying.

All of Sam’s campers were gone before the final stragglers of your group had been picked up, so you met his eyes across the room to share a look that he’d accurately interpreted as an invitation.

He showed up at your cabin just a few minutes after you’d gotten back with a softness behind his eyes as you opened the door for him.

You leaned against the doorframe, blocking his way in so you could playfully inquire, “Would you like to come inside?”

He nodded, breathing a curious laugh.

You hummed in consideration, smirking along with him as he realized that you were intentionally keeping him out in the rain. “Ask nicely.”

He appeared to chew it over before smugly declaring, “No.” Sam placed his hand in the center of your chest and guided you out of the way with ease, despite your efforts to anchor yourself in place with shocked giggles spilling from your mouth.

“You’d think you’d be doing whatever you possibly could to win me over again,” you scoffed teasingly, crossing your arms over your chest as a statement.

He shut the door behind him and wrapped his hands around your biceps so he could move you, yet again. When he had your back against the door, he was wearing a fond expression to note, “I suspect I already have.”

You’d been intending to take the joke further - to play along for as long as he’d allow - but you couldn’t seem to find the drive after that. The ache in your chest reminded you just how much you missed interacting with him like this again. As awful as the admission was, you were suddenly aware of just how different your summer would have been without him - borderline boring, if you had to guess.

You cupped his jaw in your hands, your voice cracking a little as you admitted, “You never really lost me.”

As easy as it would have been for him to kiss you then - to lead you into a sexual tryst - instead, he leaned forward to rest his forehead against yours like he had at the campsite.

You let the softness of the moment settle over you as you matched his breathing. The silence remained until you broke it, in the most cautious way you could manage.

“Sam, what’s going to happen when the summer’s over?”

He withdrew just enough that he could see your face as a pensive expression masked his features.

“I’m not sure.”

Your stomach sank just a little. You tried again, “In the kitchen, you said that you wanted me to take you with me.”

While he pressed the pad of his thumb to your bottom lip, his eyebrows furrowed into a troubled look. “I want to keep seeing you - of course. I just haven’t worked out the details yet.”

As unsatisfying as that answer was, you knew it was as much as he could offer you at that moment, so you let him know there were no hard feelings by pecking a kiss on his thumb.

“Well, no need to try and sort it all out right now.” You looked him up and down, putting on a little smirk as you suggested, “I think we have some catching up to do, Sam.”

The breath he let out held a surprising amount of relief - like he’d been waiting for your cue. Without wasting a second, he gripped your waist, spinning you around and pointing you towards your bedroom door with a nod of his chin. You huffed a laugh, reaching to thread your fingers through his so you could lead him, but he pulled his hand away before you could.

He only let you feel the sting of rejection for a split second before he was wrapping his arms around your chest from behind, playfully lifting you, mid-step. The surprise of it drew a pitchy squeal from your grinning lips, but he never pulled you fully off your feet. The gesture was simply meant to be a teasing prompt to rush you along, though you had a suspicion that he was only half-joking.

You’d thought he’d want you on the bed immediately, but you’d barely made it into your room before you felt him anchor you in place. The heat from his mouth as he pressed his lips into the crook of your neck made you physically melt, relying on him to help hold your weight as you leaned back against him.

You reached over your shoulder to wind your fingers in his hair, deciding then that he must have washed it earlier that morning, as you were able to rake through the silky strands with ease. He let out a soft, absent hum that vibrated against your neck as you gently scratched your nails over his scalp.

The edges of his teeth dragging over your delicate, thin skin made you shiver as goosebumps rose down your arms. His fingers were slipping around your body, dipping under the hem of your shirt to tease along your navel, which only worsened your sensitivity.

You didn’t want to pull away from him, but you wanted to see his face. You used to see his angular features as intimidating, but you’d gotten lucky - lucky enough to have seen the truly soft side of him. Looking into his eyes used to leave you feeling utterly insignificant, but you could feel your chest swell hopelessly at the depth behind them now; even in the dim, cool light of the grey sky filtering in through your bedroom window, there was a warmth. The moment his lips touched yours, you felt the spark in your chest as if you were experiencing it for the first time, all over again.

Facing him now, you pressed your body flush to his, planting your hands on his chest as your fingers grasped at his shirt. You realized that being able to feel his body heat - his skin on yours - felt right. Like a muscle memory.

He directed you to sit on the edge of the bed and then bent at the waist to kiss you. You were distracted enough by his tongue swiping out across your bottom lip that you didn’t realize he was sinking to his knees until you felt his hand on your stomach, gently pushing you back.

You were going to give him a questioning look until you felt his fingers unsnapping the button on your pants. It was setting in, what was about to happen, and you had to take a few deep, controlled breaths to try to still your pounding heart as he slid your panties down.

His fingers almost felt cool when he stroked them over your skin, using a gentle, mindful touch. He gave you plenty of time to get comfortable, directing your focus on where his lips connected with your thigh. You could feel the pleasant burn when he sucked the muscle into his mouth, no doubt intending to leave you with a fuschia-pink bloom to remember this moment by.

After seemingly avoiding the area up until then, it was the pointed tip of his nose brushing against your clit that made you gasp. Your fingers twisted into the duvet as his considered dipping into you, just barely sliding in to the first knuckle as a tease before withdrawing.

Sam’s tongue was hot as he ran the flat of it over your skin, slow and languid like a dance. He opted to not use much pressure at first, but instead, letting it build with each lap over your clit.

Your teeth were sunken into your bottom lip, mindlessly rolling it between your bite until it was tender. A dreamy hum or two escaped you as you pictured the scene behind your eyelids, but when you decided that wasn’t enough, you sat up, propping yourself on your elbows to take it all in.

He looked lovely with his face buried between your thighs and when he saw you watching him, he met your eyes, planting his hands on the small of your waist to keep you in place.

Despite the obscenity of the situation, he looked so soft and sweet that you didn’t think twice before reaching to tuck a strip of his hair behind his ear. To your surprise, he careened into the touch absently, pulling his mouth from your pussy so he could press a chaste kiss to the meat of your thumb.

Before you could retract it, the fingers of his left hand wrapped around your wrist as he sucked your thumb into his mouth, and the fingers of his right hand finally slipped into you to the hilt. A tide of warmth spread through your abdomen as he worked the digits into you to the hilt, but you had to suck in a sharp gasp when his tongue flicked over your clit again. It felt like an electric shock that had your eyes squeezing shut, so you couldn’t protest when he coaxed you into laying back again.

You wound your grip into his hair, trying to remain mindful of being too rough, but you couldn’t quite reach the thought. You knew you were tugging too harshly on the strands as he seemed to decide to draw you to the edge, but you couldn’t care, because you were peering over it in a matter of minutes.

You were entirely lost in the sensation; it was all-consuming as it dragged you down into it. The resulting orgasm had you panting as you rode it out, barely conscious of your hips moving to grind yourself against Sam’s tongue.

At the end of it, all of your muscles untensed at once, allowing you to let go of Sam’s hair as you sunk back into the mattress from your rigid position.

A content hum slipped from Sam’s lips as he pressed a kiss to the spot on your thigh he’d been bothering earlier, and you could tell by the warmth of the sound that he was smiling proudly.

He didn’t let you say anything as he guided you further up the bed, which was good, because you weren’t sure you could form an intelligent sentence - at least, not for a couple of minutes.

He stripped down, not spending a lot of time on the show of it until he realized you were watching him. Once he had your eyes, he stroked over himself a couple of times for you.

As he settled over you, he helped you sit up enough that he could slip your shirt off, leaving you both entirely unclothed. A warmth spread over your face when you realized you could taste yourself on his tongue, but he effectively erased the thought from your mind by parting your legs and slipped himself in between them.

Your lips were connected in a kiss, but that didn’t stop you from moaning into each other’s mouths as he slid in. He had clearly been intending to take it slow and let you adjust, but he couldn’t seem to help himself from instantly falling into a rhythm with his little rocking motion. Luckily, you were more than ready.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him down onto you, feeling almost cozy under the weight of him. The heat of his body perfectly mirrored the warm feeling you were left with as he slid in and out of you. You tried to bury your sounds into the crook of his neck, but you knew he could hear them perfectly, even over the sound of the relentless rain and the occasional rolling thunder outside.

Over your head, his arm reached to anchor himself on the edge of your headboard, giving him more leverage to work his hips against yours without having to pull away from you much. Without your conscious permission, your teeth nipped into the skin of his bicep, spurring him into a rougher motion that you instantly fell in love with.

The sound of his breathing, quick and labored, made your eyes roll back into their sockets. You could tell he was getting closer to his end as his movements became less controlled, and even as present as you were in the moment, you took the opportunity to recognize how lucky you were to get him like this - so unguarded and raw.

His eyes were squeezed shut, letting out an almost pained little whimper as he came and you could feel the shudder through his whole body. You cupped his face, thumbing over his cheekbone and enjoying the blissfully peaceful moment as he grounded himself again. Once he was conscious enough, he rested his forehead against yours, sweetly nuzzling his nose against yours.

“I missed you,” he whispered under his breath. There was a vulnerability to the admission - just by the tone of it, you knew it was one of the most honest things he’d said to you thus far.

“I’m right here,” you stated in return.

❀❀❀

The next two weeks were unspeakably pleasant.

You realized that, for the first time since the beginning of the summer, interacting with Sam was truly easy. As much as you’d love to say it felt like there had never been any bad blood between you and him in the first place, that wasn’t quite true; you could feel the scar tissue of a wound fully healed, but that made it even more satisfying, knowing that you’d worked through it together.

On the last day of the last cycle, you were proud to admit that you made it through the process of parting with your campers, completely tear-free, even though you caught Josh getting a little watery-eyed with every crouched hug he gave.

After the campers were gone for the year, the counselors got to stay on the grounds for the remaining two days of the weekend, with the promise of a celebration that Saturday evening. Not everyone stayed - there were some counselors that saw more value in getting home, and you couldn’t blame them, but you were desperate to milk this experience for all it was worth. After all, even though you’d have to be dead before you’d miss doing this again the following year, you’d never be a first time counselor again.

You and all the other counselors were informed that there would be fireworks after sundown, and you were free to go wherever you’d like on the grounds to watch, but Josh was quick to inform you that he already had the perfect spot.

He led you and Sam on quite the hike that afternoon, and even though there was a vague trail to follow, it was clear people didn’t take it very often.

As a branch of thorns grabbed onto your bare leg, you let out a hissing curse and then annoyedly asked, “Josh, where the fuck are we even going? There’s absolutely no way this spot is worth it right? I’m sure we could have seen perfectly fine from the beach.”

He snickered, glancing back over his shoulder to remind you, “I told you to prepare for a little hike.”

“This is not a ‘little hike’, you jackass,” Sam muttered, cautiously side-stepping a sharp-looking branch.

“You’re bitching now, but I promise it’ll be worth it,” Josh quipped back, completely unbothered, if the grin he was wearing was anything to judge by.

“Oh, yeah? Then why did Ashley opt out of this trip?” you challenged.

“Ah, because in the midst of the drama between you two,” Josh started, pausing to gesture to you and Sam. “You missed her whole story arc. I think she’s kinda been seeing a guy from Birch.”

You tried not to sound too disbelieving as you asked, “Really? Because I honestly thought you’d end up hooking up with her?”

Josh snorted, flashing his white teeth. “Absolutely not. Unlike the rest of you, I know how to keep things professional.”

Either not buying his story or not willing to let the dig slide, Sam snarkily retorted, “Don’t worry, Josh - I’m sure you’ll get one next year.”

The sun was mid-way through setting when you finally reached your destination. You’d been able to tell you were hiking at an incline on the way up, but you weren’t expecting for the woods to open up and show you a view of the grounds from one of the surrounding bluffs.

The entire perimeter of the lake was visible to you, completely unobscured. Seeing your favorite place on earth spread out for you on a platter like that almost choked you up until you felt Sam’s hand on your lower back, giving you a knowing smile when you met his eyes.

“Okay, Josh. I’m not too proud to admit when I’m wrong. This is a primo spot,” you surrendered, prompting him to beam at you proudly as he pulled a folded blanket from his backpack to spread out over the grass.

“Thank you, thank you.”

“Yeah, except I think you’re both forgetting that we’ll have to navigate our way back down in the dark,” Sam informed you smugly, but Josh just waved him off.

“Let’s worry about that when we get to it.”

The three of you got comfy on the blanket, settling into each other in a little bundle as you prepared for the show.

“So, when are you coming to visit?” Josh asked you, and your confused little smile caused him to elaborate. “I mean, I just assumed you’d be coming to stay with us for a while, right?”

You and Sam shared a blank look before you admitted, ��I honestly hadn’t thought about it.”

“Well, it’s not like I’ll be able to go off to school for the fall semester,” Sam half-agreed, sounding like he was weighing the idea in his head.

“I’m sure you’ll get there next year,” Josh assured without concern. He finished with a sly grin, “Y’know, assuming you can change your hardcore criminal ways and not land yourself in jail.” He met your eyes and teasingly informed you, “Did you know that Sam was arrested for trafficking exotic animals? When the FBI caught him, he was trying to smuggle a pangolin across the border.”

“Oh, wow, dreamy,” you quipped, playing along as Sam lovingly rolled his eyes.

“I already told her all about it.”

Josh hummed, looking pleased with the development. “I figured, but I had to try.”

After a comfortable pause, he put on a playful grin and asked, “So, Sam. Think you’ll come back next year?”

Sam looked like he wanted to say no, if not just for the principal. You could only imagine that they’d had this conversation a few times before, and Sam had given him a firm declination, but there was a hint of a smile to Sam’s tilted lips now as he glanced at you out of the corner of his eyes.

He wrapped his arm around your waist, tilting you towards him until you laid your head on his shoulder.

“We’ll see,” he replied, pulling a contented hum from his brother’s upturned mouth.

There was a certain kind of peace you’d come to know when you were a camper at Forest Springs - the kind of happiness you can only get from the bliss of a responsibility-free childhood. Those two weeks in the summer always simultaneously felt like they went on for months and flew by in a single breath. You couldn’t put a price on the freedom to do whatever your little heart desired and the comfort of knowing you were safe and sound under the care of an adult. To say you missed that feeling would be a criminally-steep understatement. You ached for it.

Somewhere, deep, deep inside, you had come back to Camp Forest Springs this summer in hopes of feeling it again, but you were wise enough to know that no matter how badly you wanted it back, that time in your life had passed, and that was truly okay.

Instead, you’d get to pack up and end your first year as a counselor with three different prizes - a love, a new best friend, and the knowledge that you’d been able to gift that same feeling to your campers.

That was more than enough.

_____________ I just wanted to say a whole-hearted thank you to everyone that stuck with me through this story. It was a big challenge to write believable pacing and dialog, but I’m proud of us for sticking it out to the end!

As always, your comments, tweets, replies, and asks mean the world, but if you feel like you’d like to show your appreciation in an even more meaningful way, you could always buy me a coffee <3

Thanks again, Alana

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#pink lemonade #sam kiszka fan fiction #sam kiszka smut #sam kiszka fic

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joshym · 1 year ago

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Why Don’t You Make Me?

Pairing: Sam Kiszka x f!Reader

Summary: you learn what being sassy with Sam leads to

Word Count: 2.1k+

Warnings: (18+ MINORS DNI) unprotected sex, angst, oral sex (m and f receiving), fingering (f receiving), pussy slapping(sorry lol), a bit of a praise kink, some degradation, rough sex, sam is an asshole(hehe), ends with some good fluff

a/n: i’m not even sure how to explain this one, lol. essentially, i watched an interview forever ago where he talks about not liking one of my favorite bands, thus, sparking this. i haven’t been able to let go of it since. we all know sammy is a bit picky when it comes to music...

with that being said, enjoy. 🤍

It’s nothing out of the ordinary for you and Sammy to have pointless, petty arguments that usually pertain to nothing of any importance. You both are too stubborn for your own good, and neither one of you are too keen on admitting any sort of wrongdoing.

Sammy loves to insert his opinion on absolutely everything. Even when his opinion wasn’t requested. He relishes any opportunity to share his opposing thoughts, even when he knows it’ll inevitably piss you off.

Something Sammy has very strong opinions on is music. He’s quite pretentious when it comes to his musical preferences. You’re always more than willing to listen to whatever song or artists he’s into at any given moment, eager to give it your full attention when he’s excited to show it to you. You love his music taste and that he’s introduced you to so many incredible pieces.

However, he never gives you the same respect. When you want to show him something you love, he has to overly critique it. Every fucking time. He’s entirely too critical of everything you enjoy and you’re starting to take offense to it. It just pisses you off to no end that he fully believes his music taste is far superior than yours. To avoid getting your feelings hurt, you’ve pretty much stopped showing him anything you love, and you typically only listen to your music when he’s not around so you can enjoy it in peace.

You’d anticipated a day at home to yourself as Sam had a full schedule. You had nothing planned, so you decided to spend the day cleaning the house and listening to a special playlist compiled of your favorite music.

You’ve been so lost in cleaning that you don’t even realize several hours have gone by. Your playlist is still on full blast, too loud for you to hear Sam coming in through the front door.

You’re startled by your music suddenly coming to a halt, making Sammy laugh at you as you nearly jump out of your skin.

“You know, that’s the most overproduced shit I’ve ever heard. There’s nothing enticing about it, feels like my intelligence is being insulted.”

You have zero patience for this right now. Not only did him scaring you annoy the shit out of you, but now he has the nerve to bring this up again. You’re over it.

“Can you fucking not, Sam?”

“What the hell is your problem?”

“You’re always dragging my music in the dirt and I’m just sick of it. It’s fucking rude. Just let me enjoy it without you being an asshole, please.”

You’re walking past him when he grabs your arm to stop you.

“Don’t try to walk away from me, sweetheart. I’m an asshole, huh?”

He’s looking down at you with a condescending expression that has you immediately turned on. Something about him being angry makes you desperate for him to have his way with you. You have a feeling you know where this is going, so why not take it a little further?

“Yep. You’re a fucking asshole.” you say through gritted teeth.

He smirks at you, noticing your cheeks becoming flushed and your angry appearance turning into a needy one.

“You better quit running your pretty mouth, y/n, or you’ll seriously regret it.”

“Why don’t you make me?”

That was all he needed. Before you know it, your back is pushed up against the wall with a light grip on your throat.

“You know you can’t talk to me like that and get away with it, right?”

He’s pressing his hips against your body, showing you just how hard he is already. With one hand, he pulls your shorts down to your feet. His fingertips trace ever so lightly over your clothed clit, just barely giving you that pressure you’re so desperate for.

“What’s the matter, baby? Your pretty cunt already needy for me?”

He grabs the fabric of your panties and pulls them up between your lips, giving you much needed friction against your clit.

“Fuck, Sammy..”

“You like calling me an asshole, huh? Turns you on being a little bitch to me, doesn’t it?”

You’re hardly able to form any coherent thoughts with as much as you're turned on right now.

“Tell me, baby. Tell me how much you love being a bitch and calling me names. Tell me.”

His lips meet your neck in small nibbles against the sensitive skin.

“I love it, Sammy. I fucking love pissing you off.”

“Yeah, I know you do. Get down on your knees so I can show you what you should be doing with your mouth instead of running it.”

You quickly comply. He caresses your face with one hand while he’s undoing the button on his jeans with the other. You're practically drooling at the thought of having him tucked away in your mouth.

He pulls his cock out, and he’s unbelievably hard.

“Open, baby. If you can call me an asshole with that mouth, you can take my dick in it, too.”

You open for him and he slowly slides himself inside all the way to the back of your throat before pulling out completely.

“Remember what to do if it’s too much, right?”

“Tap you three times.”

“Good girl.”

You open for him again and he slides in with much more force this time, hitting the back of your throat much harder. He pulls your hair into a makeshift ponytail and uses it to hold on to while he fucks himself into your mouth. You keep your eyes on him and watch as his jaw clenches with every thrust. You gag a little around him, making him smirk.

“God you look so pretty like this, honey. You’re doing so good.”

You feel him start to twitch and you realize he’s getting close. He quickly pulls out of your mouth and lifts you up.

“Get your smart ass to the bedroom. Take your clothes off and be ready. I’ll be there in a minute. And don’t you dare touch yourself. You’re not getting off unless it’s from me, got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

He slaps your ass as you walk towards the room. You strip yourself of your remaining items of clothing as you sit on the bed against the headboard with your legs open, ready for whatever he has planned for you.

He’s taking much longer than you care for. You’re getting restless and you’re so desperate. You decide to risk it and you begin to touch yourself, running small circles over your clit. Right as you’re finally feeling some relief, Sammy walks in the room.

“So not only do you call me names, but you don’t listen to me either?”

He’s holding the speaker you were using earlier. He sets it up on the dresser next to your bed and starts playing your playlist at a low volume.

“Sammy what are you-”

“Gonna fuck you to your little playlist so every time you listen to it, you remember your punishment for being such a fucking brat about it.”

As your music starts playing, he leans over you on the bed to crash into your lips with his. The kiss is sloppy and vigorous, making you that much more turned on.

He moves down to your neck and chest to suck marks into you. He takes your nipple in his mouth and softly bites at it, eliciting a sound out of you that can only be described as pornographic.

He lifts up only to spread your legs as far as they can go. Without warning, he lands a quick and light slap to your already aching pussy. Your hips buck harshly at the contact, causing you to moan even louder.

“That’s what you get for not listening to me when I said not to touch yourself.”

He does it again.

“And that’s for calling me an asshole.”

You're clenching so hard around absolutely nothing, ready to beg him to be inside of you.

“Sammy please..please fucking touch me.”

He’s looking at you smugly. He knows exactly what you want, but he’s going to make you work for it.

“You’re awfully squirmy, baby. Bet you want me so bad, huh?”

“Yes, Sam, please.”

“Call me an asshole again.”

You look up at him, confused and almost sure you heard him wrong.

“Call me an asshole again, y/n. Then I’ll give you what you want.”

You’re starting to catch on to his little game.

“You’re an asshole, Sam. A fucking dick.”

He smiles, then dips down between your legs.

“Look at you, honey. Making such a mess and I’ve barely touched you.”

His tongue meets your swollen clit with small flicks. You’re hardly able to hold yourself still at the sensation, but he keeps you in place with his arm wrapped around your hips.

He sinks two fingers deep inside of you, moving them at a quick speed. You’re already so close that you’re hardly breathing.

You grab ahold of his hair that’s draped across your belly and use it to hold him there. His fingers are moving at a speed that has you whining under him.

“Fuck, Sammy..I’m s-so close, please don’t stop-”

“Come on, baby. Cum nice and pretty so I can put my cock inside of you.”

His words have you instantly meeting your release, belting out a slew of moans almost melodically.

“That’s it, there you go. Fuck- look at you, y/n. You’re so beautiful when you cum for me.”

His fingers have slowed down to work you through your orgasm. You’re nearing overstimulation, but you can’t force yourself to make him stop. His fingers mixed with your release feel so good.

He pulls out of you and immediately puts his fingers in his mouth, savoring the taste of you.

“Mmm, gonna fuck you now, pretty girl.”

He positions himself between your legs and wastes no time plunging into you. You’re so wet that it takes you no time to adjust to his size.

He holds himself up on his knees, gripping your hips and thrusting into you. He loves to watch himself slide in and out of you, watching as his cock becomes coated and shiny with your slick. The sounds of your wetness fill the room along with your damn music that started this whole thing. He’s picking up his pace to a more brutal one.

“Think I could watch your pretty pussy get fucked all day. So fucking good, baby.”

He keeps up his pace, his face displaying pure ecstasy as his eyes become droopy with pleasure.

He pulls out, leaving you missing him instantly.

“Turn around. On your knees, face down.”

You quickly do as he says, almost embarrassed by how eager you appear but too fucked out to care.

He teases you a bit before he sticks himself back inside, burying himself in you completely.

It takes no time for him to pick his pace back up as he slams himself into you. One hand is gripping your ass, while the other reaches down under your hips to play with your clit.

“Fu-fuck, Sam, I’m close baby. I’m so fucking close..”

“Cum on my cock, and make it pretty again. Give it to me.”

It’s as if his voice contains some sort of magic, making you cum again at the sound of it mixed with the overwhelming pleasure.

“Oh my god, Sam!”

You’re almost screaming at the feeling, this one even more intense than the first one.

“Fuck, y/n. You’re squeezing me so tight. Gonna fill you up, baby.”

He meets his release shortly after you. The feeling of him filling you up is something you’ll never get tired of.

He’s out of breath, staying tucked inside of you for a bit while he regains his composure.

He finally pulls himself out, leaving you feeling empty while his cum spills out of you.

You lift your head up to see him looking at your dripping pussy, biting his lip.

“So fucking beautiful, y/n.”

You roll over on your back while he sits on the bed next to you.

“You okay, sweet girl?” he says as he runs his fingers through your disheveled hair.

“Yeah, that was absolutely amazing.”

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings earlier. I know I can be a bit ruthless about things like that. I don’t mean to be so harsh.”

“It’s okay, really. Honestly, if it ends in sex like that, I’d be more than happy to argue about it all the fucking time.”

“Yeah? Well, in that case,” he points to the speaker that’s still playing your music. “this song is fucking garbage.” he winks at you as you start to laugh.

“You’re an asshole, Sam.”

He leans down to kiss you.

“I love you, y/n.”

“I love you too.”

Masterlist

#sam kiszka x reader #sam kiszka smut #sam kiszka fic #greta van fleet fic #sam kiszka fan fiction #gvf fic #sam kiszka #sam fic #greta van fleet #greta van fleet smut #sammy kiszka #sammy kiszka smut

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watchingovergvff · 1 year ago

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Tiny Dancer- Danny Wagner

Summary: Home alone, sick, and slightly crazy. Your day takes an interesting turn after your lovely boyfriend, Danny, returns home early.

Genre: Established Relationship. Fluff and Angst.

Word Count: 1.1k

Warnings: Angst, Sickness, and Embarrassment.

A/N: I love to hear feedback, so please don’t hesitate to do so. Thank you for all the love and support <3333

——————————————————————————

Singing along, you can’t help the extra pep in your step. ‘The Indigo Streak’ by Greta Van Fleet plays throughout your living room.

You bring the laundry basket closer to you on the coffee table. Folding clothes normally bores you to no end, but the music is helping. Since it's laundry day in your household, you dawn a scraggly t-shirt from your lover’s drawer and little heart pajama shorts.

You had been lazied around the house all day, not bothering to step foot outside. Danny has been doing interviews all day and last minute preparations for the tour, leaving you at home alone today. It's been such a boring day, that you're doing chores for fun.

The boy’s new album, Starcatcher , had only been out for a couple of days now. Danny had been very open and willing to share the music throughout the entire creative process with you, but you wanted to wait until release day. So, now that the entirety of the album is out, you're enjoying it to the fullest extent.

Hearing Danny count them in at the beginning of Frozen Light , immediately made your knees weak. Jumping out of your seat on the couch, you throw the crumbled shirt back into the basket. Being alone has its perks, especially when you want to embarrassingly dance to your boyfriend’s music.

Attempting to match Josh’s vocals, you screech to your best ability. You stomp around, hopping along to the beat. Abusing the extra alone time and Danny’s busy work day, you revel in the freedom of being weird.

Speak of the devil.

Apparently, Danny had come home early. The interviews had ended quickly and tour meetings were short, so he happily made his way home to you. He expected to find you still asleep in your shared bed, but instead he was greeted with karaoke and a dance party. He was clearly not invited.

Leaning against the archway of the living room wall, Danny watches you whilst giggling at your obliviousness.

Hopping around, your party comes to a screeching halt when you catch a glance of a certain someone in the doorway. You holler in shock, not expecting someone to be in the house, much less your boyfriend.

Danny is basically bent over laughing, mostly at your reaction but also the silliness of it all. You quickly find your phone, pausing the music as quickly as you can.

Crossing your arms across your chest, you look up at him, irritation and embarrassment gracing your features. The house is no longer filled with loud music, but with Danny’s laughter. Your face flushes red in embarrassment and slight anger.

“Danny, that's not funny. Stop laughing.”

He’s still chuckling deeply, trying to sit up enough to look at you. Stomping your foot like a toddler, you roll your eyes at him.

Finally he meets your eyes, fully sitting up at this point once he notices just how embarrassed you are. Trying to reach out and comfort you, he winces when you push his arms away.

“Honey, I’m not laughing at you.”

“Yes you were.”

“No, I was laughing in surprise because I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Expecting what?” you menacingly ask.

Waving his arm around, trying to conjure up the right words. “Well, you being out of bed for one. But also your little dance party.”

You scoff at his words.

“Wow, I didn’t realize I seemed that lazy to you.”

Danny’s eyes widen in panic, not sure where to go from here. “No sweetheart, that's not what I meant–” “Well what did you mean then?” you interrupt him. Sighing, he continues, “What I meant was, I was surprised you were out of bed because you weren’t feeling well when I left this morning. We both know the last thing you are is lazy.”

“Oh, well–” your voice trails off, not sure how to respond to his kindness.

“And, I wasn’t laughing at you for having a dance party. I think I was more surprised that you were having a dance party to my music,” he smiles at you. “You must not know me well, Daniel. I’m your number one fan first and your partner second,” you allow the smile to grace your lips, grinning at him.

Fanning his face, Danny smiles at you and makes his way toward you. Opening your arms, you fall into his broad chest.

Wrapping your arms around one another, both of you finally breathe the other in. Being close to Danny immediately brings a calming wind throughout you.

Swaying back and forth, you silently apologize and he silently forgives. No words needing to be exchanged, just the closeness is enough to understand each other. “Hi,” you whisper gently into his ear.

“Hi, my love,” he squeezes you tighter. “Are you feeling better?”

Mumbling into his neck, you respond, “I think so. I have been a bit lazy today, but I got bored and started doing laundry. Which quickly turned into a dance party, not much laundry got done after that.”

“That's alright, sweetheart. Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it. Have you taken some medicine?” Danny questions whilst rubbing your back.

Shaking your head no into his chest, he finally pulls you away to look at your face. Caressing your face gently, Danny hisses under his breath. “Honey, you're burning up. You need to take something now.”

You shrug your shoulders at his words, having felt fine earlier. Dragging you back to your shared room, Danny instructs you to get back in bed while he retrieves your medicine. You groan at the growing ache in your head, having not noticed it moments ago.

Minutes past and you can��t help the urge to get up in search of Danny. Starting to get out of bed, you immediately fall back in as soon as Danny appears through the door.

“Hey, where are you off to?”

“I was about to come find you, actually,” you mumble. “I was just in the kitchen,” he reassures you, while also sitting you up to take some medicine.

Quickly throwing back the meds, you settle back under the covers. “I know, you were just taking too long.” Danny chuckles at your quiet response. “Need anything else, love?”

“You. Come lay with me please,” you plead, holding out your hands to him.

Ignoring your grabby hands, he smiles at you silently nodding at your request. He walks away, closing the bedroom door and clicking on the ceiling fan. You huff at his slowness, not quite liking his speed.

Smiling at your impatience, Danny hastily changes his clothes into something more comfy. Deciding to poke fun at you a little bit, he meanders a while longer. “Danny, you think you're so funny, don't you?” you say, trying to not let your smile appear.

Slinking over to you, Danny rolls onto the spot next to you on the bed. “Sometimes.”

Smiling across at him, you allow him to pull you closer into his chest. “Ugh, you're hot.”

“I know.”

Wacking his arm lightly, you groan at his cheesy joke. “Not funny.”

“It’s a little bit funny.”

“Maybe a little bit. It helps that I’m in love with you.” “Me too, silly.”

Groaning at his words, once again you choose to ignore him.

“I love you, my tiny dancer.”

——————

Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed!!!!

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ageofbarbarians · 2 years ago

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35 High Part 2 // S.F.K

AgeOfBarbarians

Summary: If you haven’t read part one, read it HERE

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI!!! Unprotected Sex, Slight Degradation, Oral (m&f receiving) Fingering, Praising, Chocking, Slight Edging, Squirting, Sam being a cocky fuck

Word Count: 4k

M A S T E R L I S T

You hummed quietly to yourself as you finished cleaning up the remainder of your apartment. You had worked a lot this week so you had just been throwing stuff everywhere instead of putting them where they were supposed to go. That, and you had also been spending a lot of time with Sam recently. You didn’t have much on your mind besides wanting to see him again. It had been a couple of weeks since the incident in the elevator, and ever since, he’s been the only thing you could think about. Granted, the two of you did hook up afterward but even then he was the only thought that consumed you.

Your thoughts wandered as you remember the way his mouth felt against your soaked core, how his fingers felt curved up against you, the way he worked you through your high--

That was until you heard a few soft knocks at the door. You sighed as you got up and opened it to be greeted by a man holding a bag of Chinese food. You gave him a confused look and he shrugged handing you the bag. You thanked him as you closed the door and set the bag on your kitchen counter. There was a note attached to the top and you pulled it off to read it.

I remembered your order

-Sammy

You bit your lip to try and contain your smile as you pulled the food out of the bag. You opened the containers to see he did indeed get your order correct, but you noticed there were also extra boxes. You sat them out too and it dawned on you that he was potentially coming over. You pulled your phone out of the pocket of your sweatpants and right as you went to go text him, there was another knock at the door. You rushed over but composed yourself to make it seem like you weren't too eager.

"Hi pretty girl," Sam smiled as you opened the door. He cupped your face with one of his hands and pressed a kiss to your lips. You could feel the butterflies immediately taking over your stomach.

"I wasn't expecting you tonight," You hummed against his lips, prolonging the kiss as much as you could. He pulled away, his forehead resting against yours.

"I figured I'd get you dinner and then I'd make you cum. How does that sound, hm?"

You were caught off by his words and you couldn't help the small whimper that escaped your lips. He moved to press his lips against your neck, immediately connecting with your sweet spot.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about a couple of weeks ago,” Sam mumbled against your skin, your breathing was growing heavy and you couldn’t help but close your eyes, letting the feeling of his lips ignite a fire through your body.

“Yeah? And how you were a total cockblock?” You sassed with a smile playing across your face.

“Hey, not totally, I still fucked you pretty damn good if I say so myself.” Sam shrugged as he pressed a kiss to the corner of your lips. Your eyes opened again and you shook your head.

“I don’t know, it was okay I guess.” You lied. Honestly, it was the best sex you ever had, and he probably knew that but you didn’t want to boost his ego anymore.

“Okay?” He raised a brow, a slight look of anger in his eyes.

“Show me how good you can be Sammy,” You reached up to touch his face but your arm was pinned above your head.

“I know you’re just fucking with me, but don’t think you’ll get away with that shit.” His eyes were dark and you couldn’t help the small whimper that escaped your lips. He smirked slightly and brought his lips to yours with a new hunger you hadn’t yet experienced from him.

Sam cupped his hands under your ass and you jumped to wrap your legs around his hips. He walked the two of you towards the couch before sitting you down. He hovered over you, his lips pink and swollen, breathing slightly heavy.

“You want me to show you how good I can be? And what if I decide to fuck you on every surface in your house?” Sam scanned your face with a raised brow and you bit your lip to try and hide the smile that was forming on your face.

“Is that a request or a challenge?” You gave him your best doe eyes and he leaned his head back as he smiled.

“God, how am I supposed to keep up with you?” He smiled down at you and you couldn’t help but grab the front of his shirt to pull him closer.

“Fuck me like you own me, Kiszka,” You searched his face as you ran your thumb across his face, pulling his bottom lip down. Without warning, Sam took your thumb into his mouth and you couldn’t help but stare at him in awe, a heat rushing to your core.

Sam pulled it out with a pop before he wrapped his hand around your throat causing you to gasp. His eyes darkened to a new level and he stared at you with a smirk plastered on his face.

“Be careful what you wish for, baby,” He pushed your head up slightly before pressing his lips to yours again. His hand left your throat and dragged down your chest, grabbing one of your breasts. You let out a sigh and shifted your hips to get any sort of friction. He pulled away from you before raising his brows.

“Be patient, dove. You’ll get to cum soon enough. If you’re good for me.” He resumed his actions, connecting his lips with yours once again. His words finally registered and you could feel yourself so easily slipping into submission for him.

Sam had a chokehold on you. You didn’t know if it was from how caring he was, especially when you had first met in the elevator, or the random little surprises like your Chinese food tonight or how he randomly had shown up with flowers, the simple texts telling you to have a good day or the way he always managed to fuck you absolutely senseless. Regardless, you were head over heels for him.

“Sammy, baby,” you pulled away breathless from his kiss, lips pink and swollen.

“What? What’s wrong?” His eyes searched yours frantically and you smiled up at him, shaking your head.

“Bedroom,” You stood up and moved around Sam. You took a few steps before you started racing down the hallway and you knew he wasn’t far behind you. You were just about to reach the door to your bedroom and you felt a pull on your shirt and you knew he had caught up to you.

Sam grabbed your hips and pinned you up against the wall, almost knocking all of the air from your chest. You bit your lip to try and hide the smile that was creeping onto your face.

“No more running, dove. I thought you were gonna be good for me? Now you’re really in for it.“ Sam shook his head before grabbing your hand and pulling you into the bedroom. He shut the door once you were in and you could feel yourself beginning to shake.

It’s not like it was the first time you had slept with Sam, but something about this moment was making you shake with anticipation. You needed some sort of contact from him, you were desperate for him to touch you in your most vulnerable parts. You wanted to come undone around him, to call his name out like it’s the last thing you’d ever hear, to make him feel good.

“Sammy, I want to make you feel good,” you said quietly, the words coming out before you even had time to process that you were saying them. He took long slow strides toward you and you backed up with each step until your legs hit the back of your bed causing you to fall back.

"I think I have some proving to do first," Sam shook his head once again and slid his shirt over his head. You stared at his chest, so badly wanting to cover him in marks, claiming him as your own. Sam tugged at the hem of your shirt requesting if he could take it off of you. You nodded your head and you sat up slightly to help him out as best as you could.

"Fucking christ," He mumbled. He stared at your chest, observing every bit of your exposed skin. You never wore a bra when you were home relaxing because what was the point? Right now was one of the times when it came in your favor.

You didn't get a chance to say anything as Sam's face came down and he immediately took one of your nipples into his mouth. He swirled his tongue around the hardest nub and you couldn't help the soft breaths that escaped your lips. He moved around, nipping at the soft skin and leaving lilac marks all over your chest. He was inching lower and lower down your stomach, leaving marks in his path.

Sam looped his fingers around the waistband of your sweatpants and slightly pulled down the material to leave soft kisses against your hipbones. You could feel yourself throbbing from how desperately you needed some sort of contact.

"Sammy, please," You whined.

"Ahh, that's what I like to hear." He smirked up at you before pulling your sweatpants down your legs. You swore you could have heard him whine as he pulled the material off of you; no underwear either.

He pressed a kiss to your pubic bone before wrapping his lips around your throbbing clit. You immediately fisted the sheets as your eyes closed. You let out a moan before looking down at the handsome boy below you. He looked up at you through his lashes and the sight alone could've made you come undone. His movements were slow, teasing almost.

"Sam," You whimpered, so desperately wanting him to speed up his movements. You started rocking your hips against his face to gain some more traction but he held you in place with one of his arms. With his other free arm, he teased your entrance with two of his fingers before sliding into you slowly. Your eyes fluttered closed and your head fell back. He gave you a second to adjust before curving his fingers upwards. Your breathing was becoming unsteady as his movements picked up.

"Feel good, baby? Hm? Do you like the way my fingers fuck you?" Sam asked. His voice was low and you couldn't help but moan. He smirked down at you as he watched the way you moved beneath him in response to his touch. You could feel the slow burn building in the pit of your stomach and you wanted to pull away from him but you so badly wanted him to make you cum.

"Yes, sir," You whined out without even meaning to. Sam groaned before he came down and connected his lips with yours. You could taste your arousal on his tongue and you moaned into his mouth as your fingers wrapped in his hair at the base of his neck. Your mouth fell open as you could feel your orgasm quickly approaching.

"Sam, I'm so close, fuck, please don't stop." You begged. His thumb came in contact with your clit as he continued to fuck you with his fingers, his pace never letting up. You could feel the familiar burn and you knew you were so close. Your moans were growing louder and most of them turned into desperate whimpers. Just as you were on the brink of spilling over, Sam pulled his fingers from you and put them in his mouth, his tongue swirling around his digits. He pulled them from his mouth with a pop and you just stared at him in disbelief. Your cheeks were flushed and your breathing was still unsteady.

"What, did you really think I was going to let you cum that easy, dove?" He smiled down at you and you whimpered. You could feel yourself throbbing and it was almost unbearable.

"Sam, no, please, I was so close," You begged. You slid your hand down your chest, down your stomach before running your fingers over your clit. You began to rub slow circles just to get a rise out of him but it didn't last long as your hands were pinned above your head. You let out a huff as Sam stared down at you.

"Really?" His brows were raised and his eyes were dark. You couldn't help the sinister smile that spread across your face.

"Let me make it up to you, let me make you feel good," You gave him your best doe eyes again. He obliged and you happily got off the bed and sunk to your knees in front of him. You eagerly pulled down his sweatpants and his cock immediately slapped against his stomach. You could feel your mouth begin to water but the sight of him made your arousal drip down your legs. You wrapped your fingers around his shaft before licking a stripe up the underside of him, causing him to hiss. You wrapped your lips around his tip, swirling your tongue along the underside of his head. His head fell back and his fingers wrapped themself in your hair. You sunk down further onto him, pumping whatever was left that you couldn't fit into your mouth.

"Fuck, Y/N," He groaned and sunk his teeth into his bottom lip. You ran your nails down his stomach, feeling him tense under your touch. You took him further down the back of your throat trying your hardest to not gag. You sat there for a moment before pulling back and taking a gasp of air. You took him into your mouth again and ran your tongue against him as much as you could.

"You're so good to me, taking my cock like the good whore that you are," Sam's grip in your hair tightened and you moaned against him causing him to let out a strangled breath. There was nothing you loved more than being degraded but something about Sam doing it was a whole other level.

He pulled away from you and you gave him a confused look.

"As much as I want you to keep going, I need you. Right now." He swallowed and you stood up. He pushed you into the bed and slotted himself between your legs. He pushed one of your legs back towards your chest while you put the other over his shoulder. He ran his tip through your folds and you whined.

"Sam, stop being a fucking tea- shit," You gasped as he slid into you without warning. He gave you little time to adjust before he set a brutal pace into you. Your back arched and you couldn't help but drag your nails down his back causing him to hiss. One of his free hands came up and wrapped itself around your throat. Your mouth fell open slightly as you stared up at him.

"Fuck, you look so good with my hand around your throat," He groaned and you bit down on your lip hard enough to draw a bit of blood.

"I think you can do better than that Sammy," You challenged. He groaned and his grip around your throat tightened. You smiled as he choked you, the feeling of his fingers around your throat causing you to drip.

From the way he was fucking into you, you were sure that you were going to have bruises along your hips. His speed slowed, but the way he snapped his hips forward had you shaking. You could feel the fire burning in the pit of your stomach already and you knew that it wouldn't take him long to get you off.

"You look so pretty under me, making a mess all over my cock," Sam praised as he slowed his movements again, just barely moving in and out of you. His hand dragged released from your throat, dragging down your stomach until he came in contact with your clit. You turned your face towards the bed to muffle your moans as much as you could.

"Let me hear those gorgeous noises baby," Sam hummed as he sent a forceful thrust forward. You let out a loud moan as he picked up his pace again, fucking you without any mercy. He rubbed fast circles against your clit and you could feel yourself tightening around him, knowing you could cum any second.

"How many times do you think we can make you cum, hm?" Sam teased. You replaced his hand with yours, rubbing quick circles against your clit. Sam gripped your hips as his pace sped up even more. You were seconds away from letting the knot in your stomach explode, wanting so badly to come undone around him.

"Sam," You warned.

"Give it to me, baby," Sam cooed. Your first high took over and your back arched. You let out a whine that was cut off by Sam's lips connecting with yours. You continued to work your fingers against yourself. He rode you through your high and his pace slowed. He pulled out of you and you whined from the loss of contact. He connected his lips with your clit and inserted three of his fingers, curving them upwards. He lapped at you like it was going to be his last meal, but also took his time with you. How it was possible? You weren't even sure.

You ran your fingers through his hair, pushing the pieces that stuck to his forehead out of the way. He looked up at you through his lashes again and you could feel your second high already building from how his mouth and fingers worked against you. Your head fell back and your mouth fell open. You started to grind your hips against him. He hummed against you, causing goosebumps to rise up over your skin. You could feel the knot slowly growing and you so desperately wanted to cum again.

"Yes, please keep doing that," You moaned as he angled his fingers up higher inside of you.

"Sammy please, can I cum again?" You whined. He nodded his head again and you could feel yourself coming undone around his fingers. His eyes fluttered closed as he moved his tongue against you. You tried to pull away from him but he held you in place and your moans turned into whines from the overstimulation.

He eventually pulled away from you, your arousal shining across his face. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before moving and adjusting himself up against the headboard. You swung your legs over his and adjusted yourself. You lined him up with your entrance before slowly sinking down onto him. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head as your head fell against your shoulder. Sam gripped your hips and started to roll your hips against him. You planted your hands on his chest before slowly bouncing yourself up and down against his length. You leaned forward slightly which caused him to hit a slightly different spot inside of you making you cry out and move against him faster.

"Right there, huh? That's the spot?" Sam hummed. You nodded eagerly in response and Sam gripped your hips tighter before he started fucking up into you. Your moans were borderline pornographic but you were finding it hard to keep yourself quiet. You leaned down until your chest was flush with Sam's and you bit into his shoulder. Your breathing was picking up and you could feel yourself becoming dizzy. Each time he thrust into you, he rubbed against your clit giving you feel the build in your stomach once more, but it was stronger than it ever had been. You clenched around him and he let out a moan that was enough to bring you to your peak.

“Sammy, I'm gonna cum," You whined loudly, your moans completely cutting off from the overstimulation. Your legs were beginning to shake and your nails gripped into his side, leaving crescent mooned shaped marks.

"Not yet," He shook his head and your eyes squeezed shut.

"Sam," You warned but he shook his head again.

"I said wait,"

"But I'm gonna- FUCK," You cried out, feeling your high taking over. Your thighs were soaked and Sammy let out a loud moan before you could feel the hot, sticky spurts of him fill you up. Your vision was hazy as stars clouded your vision. You felt light-headed as you had trouble catching your breath. Sam rode himself through his high and you bit down on his shoulder. His movements finally stopped and the two of you laid there for a while, trying to catch your breath. Sam gently ran his fingers along your back, sending slight goosebumps against your skin. You could feel your eyes growing heavy, sleep so easily wanting to take over. You moved your head slightly to push your face into his neck, breathing in the aroma of his sweaty skin and the cloud of sex that filled the air.

"Let's get you cleaned up, hm?" Sam said softly and you gave him a soft nod.

"I don't think I can get up," You mumbled and he let out a soft laugh. He finally pulled out of you before gently flipping you over. He got up and slid his sweatpants back on before leaving the room and you could hear the sound of the water running in the bathroom moments later. He came back into the room with a rag to clean you up as best as he could before pressing soft kisses to your face and your neck.

"I'm running you a bath. Do you want me to carry you?" He asked softly. You nodded your head and you felt him pick you up. You pressed your face into his chest as he walked the two of you to the bathroom. He sat you on the toilet and left the room for a moment. You took care of yourself before you stood up, and stepped into the bathtub. Your legs were shaky and your hips were sore but the warm water helped ease all of the tension in your muscles.

Sam came back a few minutes later with some clothes in hand and he took off his sweatpants again, stepping into the tub behind you. He stretched himself out as best as he could and you leaned back against his chest. He drew random patterns over your stomach as the two of you relaxed, trying his best not to disturb you.

After a while, the water started to turn cold and Sam helped you out, wrapping a towel around your frame. He dressed you in a pair of fluffy sweatpants that you had and the shirt that he was wearing early and carried you into the living room. He disappeared off into the bedroom and came back a short while later with your bedding in his arms, setting it into your washer. He went into the kitchen and warmed up the food he had ordered for the both of you before bringing it over and setting it down on the coffee table. Your stomach started to growl and Sam laughed as he looked at you.

"Eat, baby. I already made you cum."

"I thought it was dinner and then you were going to make me cum?" You asked innocently, hoping he'd take the hint of another round. He looked at you once more before laughing again and shaking his head.

"What am I going to do with you?"

***

If you like to be added to my tag list, comment below or message me directly(:

TAGLIST: @sparrowofthedawnsworld @jordierama @maddie-van-fleet @greta-van-chaos @interstellar-shores

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theintelligenceoflove · 1 year ago

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Love Isn’t Greed; a Sam One Shot

Summary: You (mreader) and Sam have been togeather for a couple years. You Think everything is going well until Sam sits you down to have a conversation, a conversation that feels very much like a break up. OR the one were I make Sammy Nonbinary bc this is FICTION it’s FICTIONAL!

Pairing: Sam/MReader

Warnings: none

A/N: This fic is for my tiny following of non-cis GVF fans I’ve amassed in the last few days but specifically for @puzzle-gvf for taking me in and being a friend.

If you don’t think gay men can date/have relationships with non-men without having to change their identity you don’t know gay history and I, as someone who is about to defend his MA thesis about gay men am here to tell you you’re wrong.

You hadn't seen Sam this nervous since sitting you down and talking about the reality of being in a relationship with a closeted rockstar. Sam kept pushing hair back and shaking it back down, more restless than you'd ever seen Sam.

"Babe?" You asked; this wasn't unlike how Sam had acted before that other hard discussion. Sam had sat you down and drank almost an entire cup of coffee before finally launching into a monologue about how it would suck hiding, but it would be worth it. Thankfully the two of you wouldn't have to do anything groundbreaking; Sam's oldest brother Josh and his partner Randy had written the blueprint. All the two of you had to do was follow it.

"Sammy," you said when Sam hadn't responded yet, "what's wrong?" slowly, thoughts of the worst crept in. Although it had been hard, Sam had finally decided it was too hard and was done trying. The relationship, the stress of keeping it private, was too much, and Sam wanted out.

"I like it when you call me that," it was the first thing Sam had said since asking you to sit down as soon as you went home. Home, it was Sam's house; you had an apartment not too far away. But you spent most of your time here with Sam, the dogs. You had a toothbrush on the bathroom counter and the two bottom drawers of Sam's dresser. You had left books and records and all kinds of things here. It was home; you didn't know what you would do if Sam was gearing up to tell you you were no longer welcome.

“You hate being called Sammy.” You said but were met with a head shake from Sam.

"Not when you say it," You smiled; it was slowly feeling less and less like you were getting broken up with. Still, Sam didn't stop looking so nervous.

“Do you need a hair tie?” You asked as Sam huffed as hair fell down out of the twist.

“I need a cigarette.” Sam said not watching you wrinkle your nose. You hated that Sam smoked but had long ago decided that there were worse drugs for rock stars to be doing.

"I don't have a cigarette but I do have-" You held up your dab pen but were met with another head shake.

"No after if- if you're still here we can smoke I've got-" Sam huffed, and now you were twice as confused, not sure what Sam could possibly tell you that would have you leave. Only for a moment as fear settled in your stomach. Rock stars had access to all kinds of drugs, but they also had a near-unlimited supply of casual sex. You had never been jealous of fans, or the attention they got, knowing Sam was always coming home to you, but suddenly, it wasn't the fans, not the real fans, it was the other ones, the groupies always following Sam, more than even you could, that came to mind.

Sam, however, didn't offer anything. Leaving you spiraling, when you had taken a couple quick breaths and still Sam hadn't said anything, you stuttered out, "Sammy did you-" but you weren't sure how to ask if the love of your life had cheated.

"Did I-" Sam's brow furrowed before a shocked look crossed Sam's face. "I didn't cheat y/n, I wouldn't."

You nodded, relief flooding your body. You didn't need to hear anything else. You trusted Sam more than anyone else in your life. You trusted that you would be told if Sam had cheated, so all you needed was to be told there hadn’t been cheating.

“So you didn’t cheat, I don’t think you’re breaking up with me, so-”

“No, jesus christ y/n why would you think I was breaking up with you?” Sam looked less nervous just then, more shocked than anything else.

"Well," You started, fears being relieved even more as Sam reached across and held your hand. "You sit me down as soon as I get here and tell me you have something to say. You look more nervous than I've ever seen you; even when we started this journey together, you weren't this nervous. So unless-" You suddenly felt cold as Sam squeezed your hand.

“Unless someone found out.” Again a head shake from Sam.

"No, I think if that happened, the whole band would be here. If that happened, I'd need my brothers; Josh would know what to do." You nodded, not surprised that Sam relied so heavily on Josh in this and all other matters. The youngest had always looked up to Josh more than the others. You'd thought about that often, what would happen if someone had seen you two. It might be a weight off your shoulders; you and Sam could be public, and Josh and Randy would likely follow. How much easier it would be if it was Josh and Randy forging the path for Sam and you. But no matter how much easier you thought that might be, you couldn't imagine the strain it would put Sam under; no matter how much you wished to hold Sam's hand walking down the street, you didn't wish for that to happen.

"Then what's wrong, babe?" You asked; it was your turn to squeeze Sam's hand, your other hand coming up to cup Sam's hand in both of yours.

"Being a gay man is so important to you," Sam said, voice cracking. This was true; half of the conversation at the official beginning of your and Sam's relationship was the difficulty of you returning to the closet, at least a little. You had never once hidden your sexuality, fighting too hard to be seen and seen as equal. It was occasionally a sore spot; you couldn't understand what kept Sam in the closet. There were plenty of gay musicians, hell, Freddie Mercury had done it in the 70s and 80s, and Elton John was still doing it. Only once did you ever storm out of Sam's house in anger, and it had been after shouting those exact things at your partner.

"Yes?" You dared not get your hopes up that maybe, just maybe, Sam was thinking about going public. Josh would know what to do, you thought; Sam would never make that decision without Josh right there as well.

"What if-" Sam's hand was clammy between yours. All the nerves were back, and you still couldn't imagine what Sam might say. You didn't know how much longer you could handle this before you told Sam to say what needed to be said. "What if you weren't in a relationship with a man."

You blinked at Sam momentarily, your hands tightening on Sam's. You watched as Sam tried not to show any emotion, but you saw, as Sam blinked, a tear forming. "If I wasn't-" You breathed and thought about how far you and Sam had come.

Your little local band had gotten a spot at a rock festival a couple years ago, one that Sam's band was headlining. You didn't really think you'd get to meet Greta Van Fleet, worried they would think your band was stealing their gig, being an old rock-style band. Granted, you and your band were trying for a more southern rock sound than the hard-hitting rock that Greta had. Sam had been interested, though, and had sought you and your band out after the show. And that was the beginning of a relationship you could have never dreamed up. It had been hard; Sam wanted you to give more time to your music and thought you and your band could be bigger and better if you applied yourself more. It didn't help to point out that Sam had spent the important early years of Greta living with parents who paid rent and fed them. You and your band had no such luxury though you had become popular locally, had hired an agent, you all still had other jobs, and the band hardly paid for itself. But still, Sam supported you, even as Greta also needed attention.

"Would I still-" You took a breath, thinking about what you wanted to say. At first, you thought maybe Sam was breaking up with you, as if Sam thought your not being in a relationship meant you stopped being gay. But that was silly, and Sam had already said this wasn't a breakup. Your heart was beating wildly as you took another breath.

When you met Sam, there had been a softness; at first, you thought it was the hair. You'd lovingly called the mess of shoulder-length waves "glen frey" hair. But there had always been something else to the softness, the way Sam would sit, the daintiness that neither Jake nor Josh had despite similar body types.

You caught Sam's eyes; there were tears now. So you pulled yourself out of your thoughts; you took the hand that had been on the top of Sam's and reached forward, wiping away a tear.

"I love you more than anything Sammy, I don't need you to be a man for that." You said; a sob ripped itself out of Sam's chest. You wished you weren't at the table, that Sam had sat the two of you on the couch so you could pull this beautiful human into your arms. Instead of that, you stood up, never letting go of Sam's hand. You walked around the table and pulled Sam up into your arms.

"Shhh, shhh." you wrapped your arms around Sam as the sobs kept coming, Sam's face pressed into the juncture of your neck and shoulder. You ran your hand through Sam's hair; though you had been given no verbal confirmation, you were sure you were right, at least in part. You couldn't know exactly, not until Sam calmed down enough to tell you, but it didn't matter right now.

“Come on Sammy.” You pulled back a little, pushing a stray strand of hair behind Sam’s ear. “Lets go sit on the couch.”

Wordlessly, Sam nodded, so you took Sam's hand and walked from the kitchen table to the living room couch, pulling Sam into your lap.

"I love you so much Sammy." you said as Sam wrapped arms and legs around you. Again Sam's face was in the juncture of your neck and shoulder, so you kissed Sam's temple. "It was never for your gender; it was your heart, your mind, and-" You tipped Sam's head up by Sam's chin, smiling down, "you are the hottest in the band.” Sam smiled at that.

"I love the way you care about your family, the way you look up to Josh is, it makes me wish I had been a better older brother for my younger siblings. I love the way you care about your music, and how you genuinely think your music might help make the world a better place." You leaned down, kissing Sam, soft and sweet.

"I love you y/n," Sam said, voice shaky. "I don't- I don't know where to start."

You took Sam's face in your hands. "Where ever you want Sammy, it's okay, I'm right here, not going anywhere," you promised.

You had about a million questions, just related to Sam; none of them even began to touch what this meant for you; Sam was right. Being a gay man did mean a lot to you; it was maybe the most important identity you held, even more than being a musician. But here, the person in your arms was as important. Reckoning those two things would happen. You could not imagine a world where they clashed so hard you had to choose one over the other.

"Josh knows," Sam said, having wiggled out of your hold. Sam was sitting across from you, staring at where your knees were touching. "I told him last year. I'm sorry I didn't-"

"No, shh." You reached out where Sam was picking a loose thread on the couch, covering nervous hands. "Don't be sorry about that." Sam nodded, taking a deep breath.

“I told Josh and he- I think he suspected for a while, but. I told Jake and Danny and they were- well of course Danny was okay with it, and I didn’t think Jake wouldn’t be okay with it it was just-” Sam trailed off. You didn’t say anything this time, letting Sam organize what needed to be said.

“I didn’t mean to keep it from you,” Sam held a finger up to your lips when you went to interrupt and say it was okay. “I’m not apologizing, I'm telling it so we can get to your questions.” You smiled and kissed Sam’s finger loving the blush that spread across Sam’s cheeks.

"I didn't mean to keep it from you, I was scared, and then." Sam smiled. "And then Randy told me I should break up with you because you kept misgendering me. When I told him that I hadn't told you yet, he told me if I was that worried about your reaction I should break up with you and I realized he was right."

You felt, not for the first time, your stomach drop. Sam must have realized what had been said, speaking so quickly it was hard to understand.

“So I told you.” Sam finally said so you could understand. “I realized that Randy was right. I should decide if your reaction was so scary that I couldn’t tell you and I decided it wasn’t. You’ve always been kind about Danny’s partner, never once misgendering them, hell, your fucking drummer is a transman and you talk about being queer as much as being gay so I just-” Sam took a breath that wavered at the end, like crying was on the horizon.

"I want to use they/them pronouns." Sam said, their eyes closed tight. "Sometimes I think about using other pronouns, I've tried some others I- Once Josh used 'she' for me and I-" Sam's voice wavered and cracked.

“I’m not a woman y/n I swear I just-”

"I did drag in college." you said, "Nellie Young, I wasn't very good" Sam looked at you, unsure where you were going. "I used she/her pronouns in drag, and I know for me it's not the same, but I hung out with a lot of drag queens, and some of them are men, some of them aren't men, most of them use she/her some of them don't."

Sam nodded, biting their cuticle, nervous, but at least they knew where you were going. "Sammy, if you told me you were a woman," You took a deep breath, "I would have a lot of reevaluating to do, but I know my queer history, I know that gay men have always fucked around with gender, and they have always fucked around with people who fuck around with gender and it never once made them less gay."

Sam smiled, the first real, un-nervous smile all night, so you took their hand in yours so they stopped biting at their nails, kissing their hand before holding it over your heart. "I love you, Sammy."

“I love you too y/n.” Sam said, looking relaxed. “I liked when Josh used ‘she’ but I didn’t know- I’m not a woman, but I’m not a man, I like nonbinary it’s a kind of freedom to be whatever I want.”

You nodded, urging Sam on. “I really like my name, I love when you call me Sammy.” You grinned, pushing hair back behind Sam’s ears.

"So," You said, loving how relaxed and happy Sam looked; you had no idea how you had never realized the weight she was carrying keeping this from you. "Sammy, my partner who uses they/she pronouns." You watched Sam grin.

"I already call you beautiful," you said, loving the way Sam blushed. "But how do you feel about handsome?" Sam wrinkled their nose, so you nodded, you could only think of one time you'd ever called Sam handsome, and you'd both thought it was so out of place you'd started laughing uncontrollably.

“I like all the pet names you use.” Sam offered, and you nodded. Sam’s finger came back up to her mouth as she thought. You carefully pulled their hand away as they smiled shyly. “I think that’s it.”

"If you think of anything else, we can talk about it then." You promised, putting your hands on Sam's hips and dragging them into your lap before you leaned forward and kissed them. The kiss said more than you could probably say with your words. I love you. I support you. I'll always be there. You knew this would change things. Likely in ways you never could imagine. But, as you settled back into the couch, the weight of Sam on top of you, you knew it would be for the best and would bring the two of you closer together.

#sam kiszka fanfiction #Samuel Kiszka fanfiction #sam kiszka fan fiction #samuel kiszka fan fiction #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van fleet fanfiction #sam kiszka #samuel kiszka #Greta Van Fleet

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gretavangroupie · 4 months ago

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Recommendations

After countless asks in our inbox, Jules and I have put together a list of some of our favorite fics - the ones we find ourselves reading time and time again. Hopefully there will be a few on here that you haven't read yet and will fall in love with too!

Jake:

Green Eyed Monster - @builtbybrokenbells

Covet - @jakeyt

Le Morte d'Arthur - @joshym

Until This Is Over - @abeautylives

Cream & Sugar - @sacredthefran

Melodic Memories - @builtbybrokenbells

Come Over - @milkgemini

Valence - @gretavanfleetposts

Imperfect Moments - @abeautylives

Disgrace - @gretavanfleetposts

Lost Boys - @tlexx

The Vanishing - @fleet-of-fiction

Amongst The Wildflowers - @jakeysfallingsky

The Lovers - @age-of-greta

Behind Closed Doors - @anthemofgvf

Decorum and Refinement - @gretavanlace

Rotten Apple - @builtbybrokenbells

Pictures of Time - @farfromthehomelands

Capital Vices - @builtbybrokenbells

Anything for You - @themoreyou-love

What Is and What Should Never Be - @devilat-thedoor

Bound - @gvfgal

Best Laid Plans - @writingcold

Josh:

It's Never Over - @builtbybrokenbells

Eternal - @readyforthegarden

Honey - @caravelmp3

Endless Summer - @anthemofgvf

Troubled Mind - @britney-gvf

Trip Around the Sun - @abeautylives

The Sex Scene - @fleet-of-fiction

Sam:

Picasso - @builtbybrokenbells

The Moon - @age-of-greta

Karma Sutra - @obetrolncocktails

Pink Lemonade - @garbagevanfleet

Daniel:

Belladonna - @builtbybrokenbells

Emerald Green - @hearts-hunger

Too Late to Go Back - @stardustndreamsofsilver

Four Weddings and A Funeral - @hearts-hunger

Guilty Pleasures - @builtbybrokenbells

Illicit Affairs - @aflame4goinghome

Forbidden Twins:

Cruel Summer - @sacredstarcatcher

Gold Dust Woman - @builtbybrokenbells

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gretavanmoon · 4 months ago

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S A L T Y

Jake x female reader

4.8k words

+ After indulging in a shared stamina-boosting treat in the dead of summer, you find yourself twisted up in a silly argument that's laced with jealousy... the salt is heavy in more ways than one with this one.

Happy Fourth of July! Keep this in your back pocket for your post-firework bedtime story. Gracias to @gretavangroupie for edits and forcing me to post this love yaaaaa

Warnings: 18+! Angst: Cursing, Substance Use in the form of Aphrodisia, Arguing, Mentions of Alcohol, Heavy Jealousy & Possessiveness, Overall Bossiness Smut: Kissing, Touching, Penetrative Sex, Unprotected Sex, Fingering, Oral Sex (M! and F! Receiving), Dom/Sub kinda

“Son of a bitch, if we keep it up like this I’m not gonna have anything left in me, baby,” Jake admits as he removes his right foot from the arm of the couch, the other standing weakly on the floor, barely holding his weight. Your body is bent in half, your arms holding you uncomfortably upright as he pulls out from behind you, hands still gripped and squeezing tightly around your waist.

You and Jake had made the early afternoon decision to each eat a special pleasure-boosting chocolate that you’d been told about by a friend a few months ago, and saying that the effects always took perfectly for the both of you would be an understatement. Just one serving would have the two of you ravenous for each other for hours on end, and seeing as how neither of you had anything to do for the rest of the day, it only seemed right to end the weekend on a high note. It was only after you’d both eaten the chocolate and after you figured out that your air conditioning had decided to go out that you told Jake about your plans for next weekend, thus sending him into a pissed-off mood that was borderline a thrown tantrum. But you accounted his mood to the extra blood flow the chemicals in the chocolate had given him going straight to his dick, leaving little for his brain to process thoughts.

“Hah, look at you calling me baby, after bitching at me all day,” you quip, turning to meet eyes with him as you stand up straight again, the feeling of your own wetness sliding between your thighs. Your muscles already feel weak as you turn to plop back down on the plush cushions of the couch, careful not to drip anything on your freshly washed covers.

He instantly falls to his knees, growling as he grabs the insides of both of your legs to pull you closer to the edge of the couch. His mouth is instantly connected to your core, his tongue already burying itself deep inside your deepest crevices. You’re both groaning from near exhaustion, willing your bodies to keep up with your desire.

“I can bitch at you and still call you baby, Y/N. Not my fault you said yes to a date with someone else without my permission,” he barks before diving back between your legs.

Your hands smooth back the strands of hair sticking to his forehead, pulling them away from his face as you bite both your lips in, finding it insanely difficult to stop yourself from wailing his name so loudly you disturb the neighbors. He’s being facetious and you know that, but his attitude makes it all the more challenging to not give in to him completely. You love it when he gets a little jealous.

Instead of yelling at him, you bite a quick “fuck me” through your tightly clenched teeth, hoping to god he doesn’t hear you. His brow furrows as he makes eye contact with you, a maddening expression painted on his sweat-coated face that you’re sure is only there simply for the sake of playing dumb. “Are you just raving, or is that a request?” he growls as he pulls away just long enough to breathe his words out.

“Neither, asshole,” you lightly tap your fingertips to the side of his temple, knocking him sideways as he presses your legs apart, giving him further access to work you. He likes it. He gets off on you being playfully scornful to him. He cracks a short-lived but devious smile before turning back into his whiney self.

You take a quick breath, ready to explain yourself again. “And it’s not a date, it’s drinks. With my co-workers. How in the– aahhh, fuckkkk– how in the fuck is that a date?” Your eyes begin to roll back a little as he points his tongue directly over your clit, arrogantly knowing exactly what makes you fall apart for him.

He pulls his head back with a hiss, making you disconnect your hands from his roots as he eyes you meticulously. He licks his lips, your slick still coating the 5 o’clock shadow that’s now adorning his face after going at it with you all day. His eyes never leave yours as he plunges his two middle fingers inside you, pushing his other hand against the inside of your left thigh. “How is it not a date, baby? Don’t be fucking coy. You dated the man.”

You groan in aggravation as he pisses you off even more, still pinning your leg to the side as his fingers work inside you, hitting your g-spot with so much fucking ease you want to slap him again. “I went on two dates with him! That hardly qualifies as dating, Jacob,” you retort as he flicks his fingers with more precision. Your head falls back again, the pleasure coming in rippling waves now as you feel your stomach tightening. “Plus, he’s my manager… invited everyone… how am I supposed to say no to that?”

The air shifts a little as he loudly clicks his tongue.

“Did you ever fuck him?” he asks quickly, sitting back on his heels as he completely halts all movement of his hand.

“What?”

He leans in, hovering over your belly as his face is dangerously close to yours, his fingers still buried deep but staying completely still. “Did… you…ever… fuck him? Simple question, love.”

You swallow, not expecting the conversation to even go here, let alone while you’re literally fucking him.

Your eyes dart side to side, the blurry memories of sleeping with the man who is now your boss those some ten-odd years ago flashing through your mind. That was a lifetime ago, you were barely in college a few weeks. And it was two dates and a hookup before the two of you decided to just stay friends, and that was that. You’d only seen him in passing a handful of times over the years, but to be quite honest, after sleeping with him, he barely ever even crossed your mind.

You swallow again as Jake’s eyebrows raise, waiting for you to answer. He shoves his fingers deeper inside you to remind you that he asked a question, making you clench around him. “Fuck! Yes, okay? Yes. We slept together one time, Jake. Once. And it was ten fucking years ago.”

He stays silent as he bites his lip in, a rush of what looks like disappointment crashing over his face for just a second. He slowly picks up the pace again, delving his fingers inside at a much slower pace, now.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he mumbles, still biting his lips. You can tell that your admission has defeated him just a little.

“Tell you what? That I hooked up with him once? Probably because it feels like it was a figment of my imagination, at this point. I was eighteen. Why does it matter?” you ask, wondering if he’s really upset, or if he’s just pouting at the fact that you left this little detail out about this certain person you work with.

“He’s your fucking manager, Y/N, I don’t know…” he says, shaking his head side to side. You can see the sweat starting to form on his chest, the drips starting to form into a stream that is dripping down to his stomach. You could feel the heat of the day starting to creep into the walls now that the A/C has been out for a few hours, and the sun practically baking everything it touches outside isn’t helping in the matter. But there’s nothing you can do about it right now, the both of you will just have to suffer until the chocolate wears off and you can act like humans instead of rabid animals.

You stay quiet as you feel the knot tightening in your stomach again, wanting him to continue so you can reach your high, but also feeling the heavy shift in the conversation. You glance at the sweat pouring from him, and some kind of carnal instinct to want to taste it takes over your entire being. You suddenly need your mouth on him. You need to lick up every droplet of sweat that’s rushing down his body, and swallow it down. Taking matters into your own hands, you grab his wrist and rip his hand from you, standing up as you pull him to his feet. The soreness sets in again, having been in nearly every position in the Kama Sutra already today.

You pull on his hands, making him follow you into the bedroom. “What are you doing, Y/N?” he asks, trailing behind.

“Come in here, come lay down,” you order, turning him to push him down into the already messy sheets. Luckily, there’s a fan in here, giving the two of you a little reprieve as the heat fills the house. You watch as his tanned body falls backwards into the stark white sheets, his hair falling behind him as he reclines. His skin is glowing, his eyes trained on you, watching your every move as you crawl up him, purposefully snaking your body so that he has a visual of every single curve of your sweat-covered self.

You lean down, outstretching your tongue and touching his navel, working your way up his stomach and to his chest, collecting the deliciously salty taste of him on your tongue. There’s something about it, the flavor and the scent and the way he feels beneath you… it’s not the most pleasant, but you’re positive nothing on this earth tastes or smells more like home to you. You’d always read about how animals are attracted to their mates’ scent, and you never understood how it could apply to humans, too, until you became serious with Jake. It’s something that’s just wired into your brain now, and the longer you’re together, the more you find yourself craving it. Craving him.

“I’m sweaty and gross, babe,” he complains as he leans up and twists his hair into a knot behind his head, remnant baby hairs still sticking to and framing his face.

“You think I care? You taste so good… like you just got out of the ocean…” you say honestly, making him laugh a little through his nose. You run your tongue all over him, his sides, his groin, his pecs and his neck… each place tasting better than the last, and each spot making him absolutely feral at the feeling of your mouth on him. His light moans of bliss fill the room as his hands search for any part of you he can grab on to, his eyes fluttering open and closed as you watch his face light up.

You can tell he’s getting hard again as you let your lips lightly ghost over his shaft, the chocolate still putting in work in keeping him turned on. Finally, you find yourself starving for him again, too, letting your lips cup over the head of his dick as you give it one tight little squeeze.

“Please baby, fuck…” he grunts, his knees bending up and around your body. One thing about the way this chocolate works is that it amplifies everything, making every brush, every touch, every sensation amplified by a hundred. You have already had your mouth on him a couple of times today, but you can imagine how he feels simply from your experience with his mouth on you earlier, begging and wanting and needing the feeling so desperately. Absolutely bursting at the seams to experience the euphoria.

You move your body to straddle him, letting your already completely soaked core drift over his cock, ready and waiting to fill you again.

“Don’t think I forgot about the conversation we were having, Jake,” you tease as you position your knees firmly on either side of him. He fills his cheeks and blows out a long puff of air, his hand hitting his forehead to wipe away the sheen of sweat.

“I don’t remember us having a conversation, Y/N, but I remember me expressing to you that I’m not happy with this arrangement,” he says, smirking at you a little while he runs his tongue along his teeth. “You fucked him! And you work with him! And you never even told me!” he all but yells.

You let your opening line up with his tip, letting yourself fall on to it just an inch or so. Your body was begging you to sit all the way down, the fire burning within your veins way past its boiling point. But you held strong.

“You think I fucked him, Jake?” you ask, swirling your hips gently on him.

He tries his best to stifle his words, but he comes up short. “Oh my god, baby, you feel so– please…” he begs, his jaw falling slack just from the tiny touch. His eyes pop open and look at you, his expression absolutely pleading for more. “Yeah, you told me you did…”

You pause, letting the heavy air hang for just a second as you laugh a little under your breath. You shake your head side to side at his naivety, wondering just how he thought the situation went down all those years ago. “I didn’t fuck him,” you answer, letting yourself fall another inch as your fingertips pause on his stomach. “I was eighteen, I didn’t even know what fucking was…” you purr, swirling on him again.

His chest is heaving with want, his growls now turned into desperate whimpers as he’s doing anything but begging you to let him fill you. You know that if things were normal, and if the two of you weren’t caught up in this childish back-and-forth, he’d be on his hands and knees for you, falling to the floor at your every whim. His hips buck up into you, but you rise on your knees, not allowing him to have any control over the matter.

“But you… you and me… this…” you go on as you sit back down, giving yourself centimeters. “I didn’t know what I was even missing, until I found you…” you admit. “No one has ever made me feel like you do.”

He takes a deep breath, centering himself. “None? None of them?” His hand sneaks up and presses a thumb to your clit, adding just enough pressure to make your breath catch.

You shake your head side to side again, as you’re almost seated to the hilt, the feeling of him filling you again already making your body shudder. “No baby, none of them. So you can cut the pissy attitude, or I’m hopping off of you, and taking care of myself.” With that, you sit down completely on him, your bodies finally resting together as you feel the tip of him buried as far as he could get.

“Ffffuckk, Y/N, god damnit, yes,” Jake howls into the room as his thumb still works your clit, his other hand rushing up to grip onto your hip. But you steady your movements. Though your body is burning for you to move, you want to give him the same lack of satisfaction he gave you earlier. But just for a second.

“Answer me, am I going to have to take care of myself, Jake? Or are you going to quit being salty over something that doesn’t fucking matter and let me fuck you how I want?”

You know the situation matters to him. And you’ll validate that later. But not right now. Right now it’s fueling too much angst and you’re having too much fun.

His grip on your hip tightens so hard that it almost hurts, his fingernails digging into the thick muscle there. You’re fully aware that both of you can get turned on from dirty talk alone, and the chocolate is only exaggerating the feeling. Your brain is buzzing with electricity from it. You love when he gets a little rough. He can tell that your body responds to the little bit of pain, and like a switch flipped in his brain, he lets it turn on all his lights. Suddenly both his hands are on your hips, switching the places of both of you in one swift movement. Your body is pressed against the mattress, your shoulders being held down as he hovers overtop of you. “How about you let me fuck you how I want, hm? How’s that sound?” he challenges with an air of greed.

Like a petty little pet, you nod your head, completely losing the war of being the one calling the shots the second he squeezes your clit between his thumb and forefinger. The sensation almost kills you, cuts off your ability to breathe altogether as he begins pulsing his fingers quickly, causing the desire to pool up in your belly all over again. He’s never really concentrated his fingers this pointedly before; usually his hands are grabbing and squeezing wherever they can. But with the most sensitive part of your body being held so tightly and at the mercy of his fingers, you feel completely at his will. “How about I show you exactly why you choose to stick around, and you’ll keep choosing it, no matter how many dates you go on with your boss.”

“God, give it up, Jake,” you complain, rolling your eyes dramatically as his movements set your whole body on fire again.

You’ve barely gotten the words out before his other hand is braced across your neck, applying just the right amount of pressure to your pulse points. You want to swallow, but you can’t, all you can do is let out a pitiful whine that sounds more like a choked sob than a moan. His other two fingers are still gripped on your clit as he balances on his knees, his eyes laser sharp as the sweat continues to drip from his chest.

“Give it up? Give it up?! Baby, you’re being awfully bossy for someone who is in the wrong, here. And for someone who’s acting so bratty today,” he says, his voice sounding gentler than the words he’s spouting. “Tell me you won’t go to the bar with them. Tell me you’ll back out of the plans.”

Deep down, you know Jake doesn’t give a fuck who you hang out with. You’re both comfortable enough in your relationship that trust is paramount, and neither of you have ever tested it. He trusts you, and you him to come home to one another every night, never straying or giving the other a reason to be suspicious about anything at all.

He squeezes a little harder on your throat, sending a shockwave of pleasure straight to your core as his eyebrows shoot up.

“Come with me. Come out with us. You haven’t met them yet, anyway… come let them see that I’m yours, we don’t even have to tell them. We can show them…” you suggest, honestly liking this idea way more. His grip on your throat loosens as bit as he contemplates the idea.

“Show them, hm?” Finally he nods, giving in to your suggestion. “Okay, yeah, I’ll show up…”

You nod back at him as you give him the tiniest smirk, bringing your own hand up to cup over his, squeezing his fingers a little tighter on you. “What’s with you today, huh? Testing me every five minutes…” he asks. His teeth grit against one another as the wind from the fan hits the back of his head just right, blowing his damp hair over his face as he lets go of his grip between your legs, adjusting his body so that he’s positioned perfectly above you again. His hand moves from your throat straight down to your tit, gripping the whole thing roughly as he takes his dick in his hand, running it up through your wetness. The sensation is enough to floor you, every single atom in your body on fire and wanting to feel him completely.

Your hands find his waist, pulling him into you with everything you have, your legs already wrapping around him. “Stop making me fucking wait Jake,” you spout. “I’ll stop bitching, I promise, just please…”

“Oh now you wanna back down…? Not like I haven’t gotten you off three times already today…”

“You’re the one who’s been fucking bitching like a teenager all damn day! God…” you rouse, knowing that your voice is probably grating on his nerves right now. He presses himself harder against you, daring you to say another word.

“Watch your mouth,” he warns, still holding himself in his hand. You can feel his pulse throbbing in the head of his dick as it presses up against you, and you know if you say another cross word, you’re in for it.

“And what if I don’t?” you press, sounding as prissy as you possibly can.

He taunts you with the same ultimatum that you gave him earlier, “Then I’ll just have to go and take care of myself, I guess… and leave you here unsatisfied. Your mouth has been nothing but aggravating today, Y/N, I swear to god…”

You roll your eyes at him, knowing he most definitely hasn’t forgotten about your lips sucking at him for nearly an hour today, if you added it all up.

“Will you just fuck me, Jake? I’ll keep my mouth shut if you shut yours…” you spout as you feel your core drip down onto the sheets.

“Is that a fucking promise?” he asks, cocking both eyebrows.

“Swear.”

Like a wild animal that can no longer control it’s instinct, he presses all the way into you, stifling all the noises that you know he wants to make. His body lurches to hover over you as he picks up a slow pace, his hips cracking with extreme precision as his thighs smack against the backs of your legs. “God, you get on my fucking nerves,” he jests through his teeth.

“Mutual,” you say quickly, jutting your chin upward.

Your throat is burning with rage as you stop yourself from crying out, only tiny breaths of whimpers escaping as you hold your side of the quiet bargain. His eyes are dark and devious as his hips snap harder, hitting you more deeply than he has all day. Your vision blurs into a deep black with each thrust, the pleasure threatening to make you go nonverbal, anyway.

An especially harsh breath falls from you as he bends your leg up, hitting you even deeper and at a new angle. He brings his left hand up to his mouth, pressing his pointer finger gently over his lips with a hushed ‘Shhh’.

Your hand flies up and cups around your mouth as you follow his order, ceasing all sounds that could possibly escape you. His eyes stay trained on you as his hair falls across his face and yours, his scent wafting across your nose as you take in chopped breaths through it. You force your eyes closed as the pleasure builds in your stomach, the familiar feeling of the beginning of another delicious orgasm overtaking your psyche. It burns, the threat of overstimulation creeping up in your insides, but you ignore it simply for the fact that you are going to feel him so wholly again, letting him bring you to the brink of no return for the third, fourth, fifth… whatever time it will be today.

Suddenly you feel his lips on the shell of your ear, his teeth biting in as he whispers. “I’ll go on your little work outing with you, but if I’m gonna endure being around a man who’s already fucked you, you’ll do things to my liking, got it?” he asks, and you know better than to say no right now. Your stomach muscles are tightening, jerking your body as the bliss builds up, so you nod in agreement as your hand is still clamped over your mouth. “You’ll wear that low-cut top with the lace straps that I like so much… and that black leather skirt that cuts at your thigh… wear my favorite perfume, and that pretty little necklace I got you for your birthday. Sound good, babydoll?”

You nod again as his teeth pull on your earlobe, his voice low and gravelly, still. “Good. Then it’s settled. Then everyone will see how tantalizing you look outside of your work clothes, and they won’t be able to do a goddamned thing about it… they won’t be able to touch you… They’ll just have to admire you from afar while I tease you under the table…” his hand ghosts down and his thumb finds your clit again, making your eyes shoot closed and your head tilt back into the pillows. Fuck, if he doesn’t always manage to win these things. And you know he isn’t lying, either. You know your entire work outing will be full of his hands secretly snaking between your legs under any table you’re sitting at, his hand gripping your ass at every turn, his eyes staring daggers through you from across the room…begging you to sneak with him into the bathroom.

You know how the game is played, and somehow, he always fucking wins whether you want him to or not. What you don’t know though, is that he thinks the exact same thing of you. You winning him over with the way you feel wrapped around him, your body drenched and buzzing beneath him. He always wins, even when he doesn’t.

“You gonna cum, baby? Let me have it one more time?” he asks, his hand now pressing down on your stomach where he can feel himself entering you with each pointed thrust he’s still delivering.

“Mhmm…” you moan into his neck, his mouth still sucking hard on your ear and everything surrounding it.

“You’re mine… all mine… no one else’s… give me what I want, baby,” he gloats, and his possessive words send a slow shockwave through your body, the rippling effects of the most intense orgasm you’ve had today sending your mind into a noiseless world of white light. All you can feel is him, all you can think about is him… and when you finally catch your breath and let your hand fall to the back of his neck, your pitiful moan on the come-down reverberates off the walls, sending him to finish right behind you.

When his breath finally evens enough to come back to earth, his body collapses on top of you, completely spent as he pulls himself out of you. You lean down to kiss his neck, his skin still coated in that sweet-salty goodness that is enough to get you going again, but you relax, feeling the effects of the chocolate beginning to slowly wear off.

He flips his head around to face you as you both lie face-down on the bed, and a smile that you haven’t seen all day sweeps across his pink, pouted lips. “Do I still taste like the ocean?”

You let your fingertips tousle the hair around his face, drenched and sticky. “Better than the ocean. You taste like you.”

His cheeks blush as his demeanor completely shifts into softness. “You know I love you, right?”

“Yeah baby, I know,” you reply with sincerity.

“And you don’t have to wear all that stuff to the bar. You’ll look beautiful in whatever you choose. You could turn heads in a burlap sack.”

You giggle as you pull his hand up to your lips, kissing his palm. “But what if I want to wear all that? What if I want you to tease me all night, make my boss even more jealous than he probably already is?” you press.

“Then it’s a no brainer. Do it up, baby. I trust you,” he says with confidence.

“Maybe I will,” you reply, taking a deep breath. “Not pissy anymore now that I gave you what you wanted?”

He smiles coyly, snaking one arm underneath you to pull you on top of him again. “Nah. No more bitching from me. I think I was about to have a heat stroke.” His hands are ghosting all over your body again, but not in a wanting way. His fingertips drift over your curves as if he’s adoring the body that is sitting over him. Simply taking the time to appreciate you.

“Me too,” you giggle, and you know that the festivities for the day have most likely reached their bittersweet end. “I’ll go start us a cold shower while you call the landlord, sound like a plan?” you ask, holding your hand up as you await a high-five.

“Deal,” he says, clapping his hand to yours. “But you can’t try and seduce me in the shower, I don’t think I have anything left in me. You’ve drained me dry, girl.”

You laugh through your nose as you hop into the floor, rushing off to the bathroom. “We’ll see about that.”

xoxoxo Jules

Taglist: @britney-gvf @sacredstarcatcher @wetkleenex-gvf @farfromthehomelands @takenbythemadness @writingcold @builtbybrokenbells @ohgodthefeeling-gvf @fleet-of-fiction @milkgemini @gvfpal @ageofcj@dancingcarbon @highway-tuna @stardustjake @jakekiszkapunchmeintheface @gvfmarge @gracev0609 @myleftsock @literal-dead-leaf @peaceloveunitygvf @ageofbajabule @slut4lando @jordie-gvf @sadiechar @tinydancer40 @rosabellagvf @capnjaket @lyndz2names @thetroublegetssoloud71 @gretavanomens @spark-my-nature @josh-iamyour-mama @anythingforjtk @alwaysonthemend @danieljlmwagner @klarxtr @fortunatelytinybasement @demonrat444 @gretavansara @watchingover-hypegirl @hippievanfleet @digitalnomadz @raviolilegs @lipstickitty @hippievanfleet @klarxtr @strange-whorizons @do-it-jakey-baby @myownparadise96 @gvf-luna @starshine-wagner@cassiesgreta @joopsandjangs @whimsiliz @kiszkas-canvas@whimsiliz @joopsandjangs @broken0mens @scoreofinfantryvines @whereiskeara @do-it-jakey-baby @miravanfleet @heckingfrick @gretavangroupie

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aflame4goinghome · 4 months ago

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Kay’s Fic Recs !

i wanted to update my fic recs from last year, so here it is 🥰

all of these fics are 18+ and contain smut! read at your own discretion ;)

Josh:

- The Art of Life by @gvfgal

- Brightest Blue by @garbagevanfleet

- Valtava by @gretavanlace

- Picket Fence Dreams by @josiee-gvf

- The Meditation Room by @fleet-of-fiction

- Champagne & Fireworks by @sacredjake & @gold-mines-melting

Jake:

- Mine by @gretavanstink

- Covet by @jakeyt

- Le Morte D’Arthur by @joshym

- Cream & Sugar by @sacredthefran

- Sémillante by @profitofthedune

- The Red Medallion by @earthlysorrows

- Capital Vices by @builtbybrokenbells

- Pedagogue by @profitofthedune

- Mirror of the Damned by @alwaysonthemend

- Heartbreak Hot Seat by @builtbybrokenbells

- Poolsides and Pizza Boxes by @builtbybrokenbells

- Little Miss Sunshine by @builtbybrokenbells

- Imber by @gretavangroupie

Sam:

- Pink Lemonade by @garbagevanfleet

- Seven by @garbagevanfleet

- How I’m Imagining You by @geminisecrets

- Lucky by @gretavangroupie

- Talk by @ageofhearingloss

- Locked Out by @sparrowofthedawnsworld

Danny:

- Little Bird by @gretavanlace

- Time of the Season by @devilathedoor

**apparently i’m in need of danny fic recs myself, so send them my way!!

Twins:

- Poppins by @gretavanlace

- Kismet by @gretavangroupie & @sacredstarcatcher

- Down The Hall by @milkgemini

Forbidden Twins:

- Vigilance by @gretavangroupie & @gretavanmoon

- A Beautiful Riff by @sparrowofthedawnsworld

- Cruel Summer by @sacredstarcatcher

Janny:

- Valor by @gretavangroupie & @gretavanmoon

- Guilty Pleasures by @builtbybrokenbells

- Sweet Little Toy by @gretavanlace

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samkiszkasfacialhair · 1 year ago

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Rollin’ and Tumblin’ Chapter 1

Pairing: Jake Kiszka and Female Reader

Summary: You’ve lived a sheltered and privileged life, only learning what it truly means to live and love after meeting Jake, a young man of unusual western sorts who was hired to work on your father’s farm.

Warnings: Cowboy Jake, hunger in relation to unhealthy eating habits, knives.

Word Count: 3.1k

April 1903

It was the spring of your twenty third year. The day started off like any other day would. However, you were dreading the events that were scheduled for later in the day- a dinner party where you would be matched off with a wealthy man your father and mother had chosen for you to marry, William Drayton. His family, much like yours, did not care for anyone who did not live up to their standards of wealth and class. The Draytons had monopolized the oil business in the south and southwest portions of the nation, which guaranteed generations of wealth, something your father more than anyone was particularly keen on.

It was all politics. No one cared about true love or real happiness. You had never even met the man and you were expected to, from this night forward, spend the rest of your life with him. And you didn’t have any other choice. Most girls you knew were paired off with men between ages seventeen and nineteen. Not twenty three. Time was ticking and your parents were not allowing you to waste any more of it after years of you protesting marriage against their wishes.

All you’ve known your entire life is etiquette and poise. You were taught, or should we say trained to be meek and mild because men like that. To have thoughts and opinions of your own may as well be a sin, and even the thought of speaking up or out of turn would send you on a train with a one way ticket to Hell. Manners were shoved down your throat and you didn’t have a single memory of not looking and acting perfect every day of your life. You were a prisoner in your own body. But this was your life and there was no way out of it.

The corset bounding your torso felt like a million pins sticking into you from every direction, pushing in harder each time you inhaled. The pink ribbon tying it together was pulled tight, keeping you painfully caged inside it, which seemed to be a physical representation of how you felt living your actual life.

You sat in the parlor room of your home with your mother for breakfast. As you raised your glass to your lips, the familiar sound of your father’s voice began in the kitchen and echoed through the rest of the house. Along with his voice was another, a deeper, smooth voice that you couldn’t recognize.

His footsteps along with the sound of another pair of feet got louder as he walked down the hallway and toward the parlor room to greet you.

You turned your head as he appeared in the doorway and wished you a good morning.

“Good morning, Daddy,” you replied.

“I have someone to introduce to you both.”

With his words, came another man through the doorway.

“This is Jacob. I’ve hired him as our farmhand. He’ll be in charge of things so you’ll see him around quite a lot,” he explained.

This wasn’t unusual. You were used to people around the house and on the land outside. You had your lady’s maids, cooks, house maids, and a few farmers who took care of your father’s pride and joy, the crops and cattle.

But what was unusual, was Jacob himself.

First of all, he was around your age, which was unlikely. Typically your father hired men well into middle age to be in charge of things related to the farm. Anyone your age, much like yourself, was typically treated as your father’s inferior.

Second, he wasn’t the typical farmer you’d seen around before. He had more of a western look. Something you’d only ever seen in books or heard about through word of mouth. He wore a hat and a brown leather jacket which covered a blue denim shirt. His pants were denim as well, ripped and dirty, and you were surprised your father would let him into your home in that state. Lastly, the boots as well as the chaps he wore led to the conclusion that he dabbled in horse riding.

He took his hat off and held it over his chest to bow his head at you and Mother.

Upon taking it off, light brown wavy hair that was tangled and clumped together in every direction tumbled down to his shoulders. He had streaks of blonde in it, seemingly from being out in the sun. It was dirty and messy- yet incredibly fascinating. You had never seen that length of hair on a man. Ever.

His face was that of someone you figured would only ever be a figment of your imagination. He had tanned skin and deep eyes that were a light shade of brown. His nose was prominent and strong. His lips naturally curved up into a smile with just a touch of facial hair surrounding them.

The only word that came to mind was handsome. And that didn’t even begin to cover it.

You smiled at him and before you knew it, he was on his was out the door following close behind your father. The sound of their voices heading down the hallway were silenced with the shutting of the back door and you sat there for a minute just looking at the now empty doorway he once stood in.

You pulled yourself out of your daydream to continue your breakfast and idle chat with your mother before finishing and heading to your room to get ready for the night’s festivities.

The next few hours were spent in your room with your lady’s maids. Pulling at your hair to get it to curl perfectly, pushing and pinching at your face to color your lips and blush your cheeks, and the most dreaded of all but the expected, corset.

Once in your gown for the night, you were accompanied downstairs where your home had transformed into a party that was already in full swing. You put on your best smile, a false one, but a smile nonetheless, and began the night.

After just a bit of time, your father, dressed in his best tuxedo, found you, linked his arm in yours and led you to the dining area to meet your future husband.

Your heart dropped into your stomach with dread as you followed him to your doom and could see exactly who he was leading you to at the head of the table. You wouldn’t say he was particularly ugly, so to speak. But he wasn’t exactly what you would deem to be good looking, or even average looking for that matter.

“Daddy,” you whispered, “I really don’t want to do this.”

You could feel your eyebrows furrowing and your face dropping as nothing but anxiety and dread flowed through your blood.

He tugged on your arm with his, pulling you closer to him in a harsh manner. He smiled and spoke to you firmly through his teeth.

“You will do this and you will do it with a smile on your face. You are twenty three years old. Do you know how difficult it was for me to find someone even willing to marry you? You should be thankful his time in the army set him just as far back as you. His time at least was well spent. Now, I should not have to remind you how to act tonight. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Sir,” you replied through a shaky breath, feeling absolutely defeated.

Before he could even reply, you were at arms distance with your future husband- meeting him, smiling, and sitting down next to him for dinner.

Dinner was a nightmare. The only topics discussed were politics, stocks, and money- none of which you understood a word of. You just smiled and nodded throughout dinner. Desperately wishing your corset would rip at the seams if you took a deep enough breath or ate enough food, both of which would be wildly inappropriate actions on your part.

So you sat there, uncomfortable and on the verge of tears for the night, all hid under a smile which falsely showed your eagerness to be there and to be wed.

After dessert, the women excused themselves to bed as the men began getting ready for rounds of cigars and brandy. Your father and now fiancé bid you goodnight with kisses to your hand. A hand with, much to your dismay, showed off a newly placed diamond on your ring finger.

Your lady’s maids met you at the base of the stairs to return to your bedroom to undress for the night but you took a turn and headed for the kitchen.

You walked through, grabbing an untouched piece of peach pie off a plate and headed out the backdoor.

Darkness surrounded you as you walked through the fields and down to the swing you used to play on as a little girl. You picked up the piece of pie and brought it to your mouth, taking a massive bite. You continued eating, fully letting yourself enjoy food for once.

Once the feeling of hunger was satisfied within you, there was no stopping the tears that flooded your eyes. They had become two waterfalls, and your lap had become soaked with the tears that had fallen onto it.

Your future was being chosen for you. You’d tried to fight it for so long and now, you’d finally lost the fight.

One by one, you watched your friends marry off into wealth and start families of their own to continue the toxic cycle, knowing eventually, it would have to be you. And now, the time had come. It was you. There was no escape from it. No way out. Not even a glimmer of hope.

You looked down at your left hand to see the ring placed there against your will earlier that night and sobbed harder.

You should be grateful. You should be happy. You were born into wealth and were guaranteed to have it for life. You knew there were so many people out there that had it worse. So many people that deserved everything you had just been handed. You were lucky. Yet, despite everything you had, you felt every terrible feeling one could ever feel.

The sound of footsteps in the grass behind you caused you to sit up straight and wipe your eyes and mouth.

“You alright, Miss?” you heard a deep voice speak softly from behind you.

You turned around to see Jacob there with a knapsack slung over his shoulder.

“I’m fine, thank you, Jacob,” you replied as you turned your head back to look down at your tear soaked dress.

It was silent for a moment. The sounds of crickets and cicadas filled their air until his voice broke through the sounds of them.

“Well,” he began, “have a good night then.”

You heard his boots crunch down on the grass underneath them as he began to walk away when all of sudden, the words tumbled out from your mouth without any hesitation.

“Do you ever just feel like you’re trapped? Like you’re on a train that is going full speed into a mountain with no tunnel to go through and if there was a tunnel, no light at the end of that tunnel to save you? Like, you’re going to crash and explode into flames and all you can do is sit there and wait for your inevitable death?”

Instantly, a sense of relief washed over you as the words you’d been holding in for so long had finally been released.

However, the instant regret of revealing your feelings to a stranger who now wasn’t speaking had begun to bubble inside you.

“I think that corset may be a little too tight, Miss. S’messin’ with your brain,'' he laughed. His voice was deep and had the tiniest twang that held onto the ends of his words. Not a lot, but just enough.

You huffed out a laugh and turned around to him again to see him smiling, with his teeth, glowing bright in the moonlight.

You reached under your dress and behind your back for the ribbon that was keeping you painfully locked in.

“There’s this, this stupid bow that I can’t get undone on it,” you said as you bit your bottom lip in concentration.

“I, I could hel-help you. If you, uh, if that’s what you want?” he asked hesitantly.

“Would you? This thing is terrible uncomfortable.”

You took your arms out of the sleeves of your dress and pushed it down, exposing the laced up piece of undergarments to him.

Was ripping the top of your dress off your arms in front of a man you hardly knew against everything you’d ever been taught was lady-like and proper? Absolutely.

Was wearing a ring against your will to be wed to a man who you hardly knew against everything you’d ever wanted in life? Absolutely.

It had evened itself out in your head and that was good enough for you.

You pulled your hair in front of you and turned your head back to face forward as he walked closer to you.

“Woah,” he whispered, “I don’t want to cause any harm or disrespect, Miss. But this, this is a job for someone who… isn’t me,” he said as his eyes grew wide at the sight of the ring on your finger.

“If you’re talking about my…” you paused and closed your eyes, “fiancé,” you continued after choking out the word, “I’ve said more words to you tonight than I’ve ever even said to him. But if you wont help me, I’ll, I’ll just do it myself,” you huffed as you reached for the satin bow behind you.

Your fingers toyed with it, as you struggled to get it to come loose when you felt the warmth of his hands on top of yours.

You stilled your hands as his rested on top of yours for a minute. They were big, and rough and the feeling of them was completely foreign to you.

Defeat was a familiar feeling to you so what was one more round of it? You dropped your hands back down and rested them on your lap, letting him take the lead to free you.

He pulled and tugged at the strings for a while.

“Who the hell tied this thing?” he laughed.

“My lady’s maid, Katherine started it. But my mother finished it off.”

“Jesus,” he whispered as his fingers unsuccessfully fought against the light pink ribbon for release.

He stopped for a moment and you turned your head again to get a good look at him.

He bent down and reached into his pocket, pulling out a knife and taking the cover off it to reveal a sharp, silver blade.

You swallowed hard at the sight of a knife just inches away from your body, and someone who was practically a stranger to you holding onto it.

“Now, don’t worry. I ain’t gonna hurtcha,” he said calmly as he brought the knife to the tie and began cutting his way through it.

The tearing of the satin fabric was music to your ears and with one tug of the now cut strings from Jacob behind you, you were free.

You breathed in and out hard now that you actually could and hunched over to relax your neck and back for the first time in hours.

“Thank you,” you breathed out.

After a few seconds of relaxing your once stiff muscles, you stood up from the swing and turned to face him.

“The pleasure was mine,” he replied, “And I’m, uh, sorry about the ribbon. I can pay your father to replace it,” he reasoned as he put the knife back in his pocket.

“No. No it’s fine I have dozens of others, Jacob.”

“Jake,” he said bluntly.

You stared at him for a second, confused, before he continued again, “M’names Jacob. But my friends call me Jake.”

Jake. You liked the sound of that.

You nodded your head and peered past him to see your mother in the doorway, looking out at you.

“Well, Jake, again, I thank you kindly for your help. But I believe it’s time that I bid you goodnight,” you said, smiling at him.

“Goodnight,” he replied, lifting your right hand and bringing it to his lips.

He held eye contact with you as he placed a soft kiss to the top of your hand.

Instantly, you felt your body light up from the inside. Your heart began racing. Your stomach began fluttering with what felt like thousands of little butterflies inside it.

The feeling of a man's lips on your hand had been felt by you before-from your father and from William just minutes earlier. However, when they did it, you felt nothing but misery and disgust. But when Jake did it, you felt the complete opposite.

He lowered your hand a bit but held onto it as he continued speaking, “If you ever need any help again, you know where to find me,” he said, lifting his chin to gesture to the barn in the direction he had come from.

A soft smile and nod were given to him in return before you walked past him and toward your house.

You were but a few feet past him when you heard him call out your name.

Your head turned around to see him biting his lip and holding back a smile.

“You might wanna,” he said as he gestured for you to put your dress back over your chest and arms, “before you go inside, back to your party.”

Immediately you felt all the blood in your body rush to your cheeks and you were thankful he wouldn’t be able to see the embarrassment on your face in the darkness of the night.

An involuntary giggle left your lips and he let out a laugh with you.

You lifted your dress back up over the undone corset and back over your arms, turned to face your house, and walked quickly through the grass and back inside where you fought back a smile as you snuck upstairs.

A few moments later, you entered your bedroom and peeked out your window onto the gravel street below. Sitting tall on the back of a brown horse was Jake.

He looked up to your window and you gave him a small wave. He tipped the brim of his hat at you before giving his horse a gentle kick underneath him and trotting off into the night.

You watched him leave with a full smile on your face and a few more butterflies in your stomach. You turned around once he was out of sight only to be met with your mother standing in the doorway of your bedroom with a straight face, staring back at you.

#greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van fleet fic #greta van fleet imagine #jake kiszka #jake kiszka fanfic #jake kiszka x reader #jake kiszka fan fiction #jake kiszka fanfiction #jake kiszka imagine #jake kiszka x y/n #jake kiszka x you #jake gvf fanfic #jake gvf #jake kiszka smut #sam kiszka #sam kiszka fan fiction #jake kiszka fan fic

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shimmerwindow · 7 months ago

Text

I Never Really

Part Nineteen

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: Marijuana use

Playlist | Masterlist

Tag List: @jazzyfigz @dont-go-home-without-me @poochiesworld @stardustcatcher @83rkblogs @jaketsguitar @dannys-dream @gretavanfan @do-it-jakey-baby @gvfpal @ignite-my-fire @gardensgatekeeper @torniturntomyarrow @dannythedog

To your absolute dismay, it no longer felt right waking up in Sam’s bed. You felt guilty, somehow. Immediate anxiety flooded your veins the moment sunlight hit your eyes and you rolled over to stare at his sleeping form. He was already awake, godlike and radiant with the light of the sun playing off specks of gold in his eyes.

Motions that had once felt so natural felt odd and foreign to you now. You had become so used to waking up next to him, and he would wrap his arms around you, and you would curl your body against his chest to revel in his warmth. The embrace of his arms never came, his hands tucked beneath the pillow. You were wracked with guilt, certain that you should have never spoken to him last night. Tears were already threatening to fall from your eyes before a word had even been spoken between you.

“We should probably talk,” he rasped, his voice still broken from sleep.

“Right now?” You weren’t sure you had the capacity to have this discussion, especially immediately upon waking up.

“Maybe not this very second. But some time today.”

It felt like you were about to be scolded by your mother, or berated by your boss. Your anxiety over this situation ran so high for a moment you thought you might actually vomit, but you managed to hold yourself together. “I’m sorry,” you said, tears spilling from your eyes and your head starting to ache. “For…everything.”

“Save it.” There was fire behind his eyes, a flame you’d seen many times before, when he was annoyed with his brothers or frustrated over school. He was actually angry with you, something you’d never seen before, and it scared you a bit. Not that you were frightened of him, but you were frightened of what it would mean for your future, what it would mean for you. “We’ll talk later. In my room.”

The remainder of the morning whisked by through your tear-blurred vision. He checked to make sure the house was empty before rushing you outside, out to his car, and back to the dorms. As you closed the front door behind you, you had taken one last long look at the inside of that house. It would likely be the last time you’d see it, with its creaky floorboards, chipped paint, eclectic furniture, and welcoming aura. A piece of you would remain there forever, and you knew that.

He ushered you up to his room, though with how high your nerves were, it felt like you were being escorted to the electric chair. You may as well have been – to live without him was a metaphorical death sentence. His dorm had gone through some changes between semesters, adopting his typical maximalist style more so than before. Posters you recognized from his room at the house adorned the walls, and the window sill was lined with as many plants as it could hold, all of them lush and green.

“I hate to say this,” he began, taking a seat in the corner of his bed with his back against the wall. He picked up a lighter that had been stashed on top of the soil of one of the plants, fidgeting with it. “But I’m more disappointed that you lied to me than anything.”

You sat across from him, as far away as possible, and you realized why this felt so familiar. Your positions now were identical to the way you'd sat with him the last time you’d had a conversation of this nature. Full-circle, as always. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you’re sorry, but…” he sighed, eyes trained on the little pink plastic lighter as he twirled it between his fingers. “Sorry won’t fix this.”

“What about you?” You couldn’t fight the urge to immediately go on the defensive. “You were with that other girl last night. Had you still been talking to her the whole time I thought it was just me and you?”

“No, actually.” He looked at you, and you could see truth in his eyes. “Hadn’t talked to her in ages. Probably shouldn’t have called her at all.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“Mistakes?” He scoffed, turning his eyes away from yours. “Is that what you’d call it? A mistake?”

You realized he wasn’t talking about his own actions. “Listen, I know you’re not happy with me. But why are we talking about this at all? I fucked up, and I know that. So we should just drop it, drop all of this, drop each other.”

“You know neither of us can.”

“Maybe we should learn, then.” You spoke softly, hoping your voice would not reach your own ears.

“Or maybe, we could just…keep some distance.”

“How are we supposed to do that?”

He pulled his shirt collar aside, scratching at his shoulder. Just to the side of his collarbone, a circular bruise had blossomed, in the shape of your teeth. The sight of it made you ache, a feeling you knew would not be sated for a long time – if ever again. He didn’t respond, clearly trying to gather his thoughts, yet failing.

“I’m not tainted, you know,” you mumbled. “I’m not ruined because I…did that. And you’re not innocent, either.”

“I know you’re not. It’s about the trust. You lied to me.”

“You never made it official.”

“I didn’t think I needed to.” He ran a hand through his hair. “And you made it clear you wanted to wait, anyway.”

It dawned on you that perhaps you’d also been the one to put him in a difficult position. To expect him to stay perfectly faithful, when you had betrayed his trust and lied to him about it, was incredibly unfair.

“And I didn’t think about it from your perspective.” He fidgeted nervously, trying to work it out in his head. “It probably looked like I was leading you on. But I didn’t realize you’d go running to the one guy I kinda made off-limits to you. But, also, it was unfair to make someone off-limits to begin with.” He shrugged, twirling the lighter between his fingers.

“We’re both guilty.” You stared down at your hands in your lap, your eyes tracing over the remnants of the scar still present on your palm. A reminder of the love you’d shared so briefly, much more permanent than the finger-sized bruises on your hips.

“Space, then. We need to step back.”

“God, I don’t want to do that.” You whined it like a petulant child, squeezing your hands into fists.

“Do you love me?” He turned to face you, his eyes boring deep holes into you. With the gloomy sunlight hitting him, you could see the bruise on his face much more clearly. His brow was still a bit swollen, the remnants of a dark circle present in the yellowish color marring the space under his eye.

“I do.”

“Then we need to.” He held out his hand for you to take, entangling your fingers gently. “I can’t lose you permanently. Take some time to heal and I’ll do the same.”

The idea that you had to heal from anything – especially the wounds you gave each other – was mortifying. It brought you to tears, though you had none left to let fall.

“How am I supposed to live like this?” You asked.

“When you figure it out, let me know.” He tried to give you a smile, though it didn’t convey anything but sadness. “We just have to suck it up. No contact. I won’t text you, and you won’t text me.”

“No more walking to class together.”

“No more dinners together, either.”

“What if I run into you at the plant sale this week?” You said, a smile forcing its way to your lips.

“Just pretend I’m not there.”

* * *

The two of you managed to successfully avoid each other, for the most part. For a week, you didn’t see much of him, only the occasional glimpse between classes as you passed on the walkways. You’d always pretend as if you hadn’t seen each other. It was painful, but less than you'd anticipated, in all honesty. It was not a soul-crushing sadness that consumed you, but something more like a sense of relief. It was nice to finally prove to yourself that you would be okay without him, and to finally have time to reflect on your actions.

You were able to admit to yourself that you had, in fact, slept with Jake as some form of revenge. It hadn’t been conscious at the time – you'd been so deep in lying to yourself about everything, it felt natural to add another tangle to the web. But Jake had never been someone you’d wanted to pursue, not until you realized how badly it would hurt Sam if you slept with him. Neither of them had deserved any of it.

By the second week, something started to shift. You’d taken the time to own up to your actions in your own head, and the guilt that once crushed you began to dissipate. When you saw Sam, you’d stop, say hi, make up some excuse to talk – maybe you remembered some random knickknack you left in his room, maybe he remembered you still had one of his shirts, though it was always a lie. And both of you knew it.

At the third week, on one Friday night, he texted you. Something simple, only saying hello and asking how you were. You’d told yourself not to reply, fought with yourself typing and deleting paragraphs declaring your love over and over, until you wrote an equally bland response. Things continued this way for weeks, the occasional talk, the random texts, all of it cordial and simple.

Until one night, when you’d had a bit too much out of the wine you’d snuck into your dorm, and he’d been feeling a bit too bold. You’d texted him something a bit too risky, and within minutes, you heard a knock at your door. That had been the first night you’d broken your own rules, and it seemed to be a constant cycle from there.

Space was not something you could successfully keep. Not when you would “accidentally” run into each other on your way back from class. Not when he would stare at you with those eyes the color of Venus, smile at you with a mouth of perfect teeth and pink lips. Not when you would visit him in his dorm, with the intention to help him with an assignment, a code both of you learned quickly. Every time, it would end with your clothes on the floor, your naked body against his, your head on his chest as he held a smoldering joint between his teeth. Today was one such day.

“We really shouldn’t keep doing this,” he said, absently brushing his fingers through your hair. “Probably not good for us.”

You were quiet for a minute, listening to the crackle of paper burning as he took another hit. “But it’s so nice, isn't it?” You grinned, even though he could not see your face, playing the part of the devil on his shoulder.

“Sure is.”

You watched smoke curl up and away from you, sucked out the window by the gentle breeze. Spring was nearly here, midway into April, the chill finally gone from the air until the next batch of snow came. Spring in the midwest was a fickle thing. It was too cold at night to open your window, but you still always did – there was something about that smell of spring you couldn't resist. The buds on the trees, the first of the flowers poking their heads out of the ground, the birds returning, all of it was breathing new life into you. And, with any hope, breathing something necessary back into you and Sam.

It had been almost a month now of this song and dance between the two of you. It was almost as if nothing had changed, but you came closer to more arguments than before. You never fought, not outright. One of you would always back down before things could escalate too far. In all honesty, you wished the two of you could fight. There were plenty of things you needed to hash out, but you never quite could bring yourselves to bring it up. You’d both call it protecting your peace, but it felt like you were only doing more damage. You’d talked it all through to death, your mutual apologies numbering in what felt like the thousands. There were no hard feelings anymore, but the scars still lingered.

They’d started playing shows more frequently as of late. The venues had gotten bigger, cover charges had turned into ticketed events, and on a few occasions down in the city, lines had formed outside. You heard whispers of some guy down in Nashville, something about albums. It was bizarre, and didn’t quite seem to be sinking in for any of you. At the end of the day, Sam was still the wonderful, corny weirdo you’d fallen in love with. Even as you watched from the wings while women and men alike screamed and cheered for him and his brothers. The band even had a name, now. A strange one, but somehow it fit perfectly.

“There’s a show at the house tomorrow,” Sam remarked, his calloused fingers tracing shapes into the soft skin of your back. “Want to come?”

“Of course I do,” you replied. “But will that be…awkward?”

He shrugged, the motion making your head bob a bit. “It wasn’t too bad last time.”

You hadn’t seen the other guys much in the past month, only once, when you’d “happened” to run into them at a bar. The whole space thing between you and Sam had made for an interesting night. The two of you kept an almost ridiculous amount of distance, not even making physical contact once, sitting at opposite ends of the group, barely interacting at all. His brothers hadn’t quite known what to do with the whole situation, all of them glancing awkwardly between the two of you the entire night. Ultimately, they left it alone, knowing better now than to get between whatever you had going.

“I’d have to disagree,” you replied, pulling closer to him.

“For all they know, we’re still on that healthy distance kick.” You could hear the smile in his voice.

“You know how I get after your shows.”

“I’m well aware.” He laced his fingers into your hair, absently playing with a few strands. “What is it about that, anyway? Does people screaming the wrong lyrics get you going or something?”

You laughed in sync with him, rolling off of his chest to lay on your elbows, looking at him. “It’s your hands, mostly. The way your fingers move…” you imitated the way his hands would fly across the strings of his bass.

“Really? These things?” He held the joint between his teeth and wiggled his fingers at you. “All calloused and fucked up?”

“That’s the best part,” you grumbled.

“Guess I just don’t get it.” He reached behind him to stamp out the end of the joint, every curve in his body a masterpiece to your eyes. “So are you coming to the show or not?”

You pondered it for a moment, turning the idea over in your head. It seemed like a perfect recipe for disaster. But the days were getting longer, the sun shining warmer on the days it didn't rain, and a part of you was aching for a drunken night of music and joy. “Sure,” you sighed. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

#sorry this one took so long it was so hard to write omg #greta van fic #greta van fleet fanfiction #greta van fleet fic #gvf fanfiction #gvf fic #sam kiszka fanfiction #sam kiszka fic #sam kiszka x reader #sam kiszka x y/n #inr #i never really #sam kiszka #greta van fleet sam #gvf sam #sam kiszka fanfic #sam kiszka fan fiction

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garbagevanfleet · 2 years ago

Text

Pink Lemonade (series)

PART FIVE

Pairing: Sam x female!reader

Word Count: 7k words

WARNINGS (this chapter): very light hearted talk of suicide by poisoning, tobacco use

Editor in Chief (and creator of the moodboard on each chapter): @gardenvanfleet

MASTERPOST

Special Playlist here (highly recommended as it fits the vibe immaculately, made in collaboration with @mountain-of-the-suns <3)

❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀

Sam was quiet at dinner that evening. After having to be waved over by Josh, he hadn’t made a whole lot of eye contact for the duration of the meal, leaving you to wonder whether or not he was still feeling the hangover.

Were you supposed to be making fun of him for it? He’d made a point to complain about your state earlier that morning when you’d first woken up, and so it felt a little out of character for you to hold anything back.

Still, it felt like low-hanging fruit, so you pushed the thought aside until dinner was over. Sam had finished and left well before you or Josh, so you took the opportunity to finally exchange phone numbers with the boy that you were starting to think of as your best friend. You agreed to meet up with him for a movie a little later under the condition that you would get to bed at a reasonable time so you felt well-rested for the morning, and then you’d gone your separate ways.

The night was cooler than you’d expected on the walk back to your cabin; every once in a while, the lake-chilled breeze would rake over your skin and leave you with a smattering of goosebumps. Hundreds of frogs filled the night air with a cacophony of low, droning croaks that somehow managed to be both comforting and eerie in their collective constance.

You almost made it. You had your hand on the doorknob to your cabin, and if you would have just forced your head down and not let your eyes catch on the light through the boys’ cabin window, you would have been able to put the whole thing from your mind. But you didn’t.

Instead, before you could put any proper thought into it, you turned on your heel and knocked on his door, loud enough that he’d be able to hear. After a few seconds, you could hear him padding across the creaky wooden floor with his feet that you knew were bare.

He pulled the door open and then let out the most exasperated breath. Instead of greeting you in any way, he just stared at you, and it instantly felt as if he could dig through the layers of your soft tissues with his eyes alone.

After a long second, you remembered you should probably say something, so you anxiously cleared your throat

“Hey. You were looking a little rough tonight - you gonna be ready for new campers in the morning?”

Without letting any real emotion seep into his voice, he flatly answered, “No.”

For whatever reason, that made the corner of your lips lift into a crooked smile. “I didn’t think so. Is there anything I can do? You seem...”

“What?” he prompted with his dark eyebrows furrowed slightly. “I seem what?”

You shrugged, unsure of how to navigate without running yourself aground. “I don’t know. It’s normal for you to be an asshole, but right now you just seem...deflated, I guess.”

“Why do you waste so much energy on stupid shit like this?” he sneered, but it didn’t sting as badly as he was intending.

A few seconds passed as you tried to collect the right words. “Well, I think it’s just because, despite your best efforts, I consider us to be friends. At least acquaintances.”

“Well, don’t,” Sam scolded, dumbfounded by this news. You weren’t sure how you could possibly respond to that, so instead, you just smiled stubbornly, shifting your weight from foot to foot.

Once he reached the conclusion that you wouldn’t be offering any more, he let out a restrained breath that sounded a little closer to surrender than anything he’d said to you thus far. “I’m fine.”

It wasn’t true, obviously. You’d never met a person generally less “fine” than the one standing before you, but deciding you’d already given it all the effort it deserved, you forced a smile. “Okay.”

As you turned around on your heel to head to your cabin, you bid him a goodnight and were shocked to hear him reciprocate in a muted voice. You thought about it as you readied yourself for bed - you wished that you could just grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he let go of whatever it was he was holding on to, but you knew there was no use in trying to force anything from him, especially since he seemed to be hell-bent on having a bad time.

❀❀❀

The next morning proved your point exactly. Sam was absent for breakfast - a fact that did not seem to concern Josh in the slightest. He spent the time chatting easily to you over scrambled eggs and coffee about how he hoped this cycle of kids would stack up to the last.

In fact, you didn’t catch so much as a glimpse of Sam until you were already in the process of lining up to be introduced to the campers. He was lucky enough that Director Graywater was distracted by a couple of particularly excited children, leaving Sam free to slink over to take his place next to you without the threat of detection.

Out of the corner of your eye, you caught him shooting a wink to Josh, who had a disapproving look locked and loaded.

After a few moments of staring down at the grass below your feet, you chanced a look over at Sam. The tips of his long hair were resting on his clothed collarbones, and despite the fact that he’d started wearing it down with a bit more frequency, it still always felt a little strange to see him that way - a little too casual.

“What, no comment from you?” Sam quipped under his breath, obviously able to feel you surveying him, even with his eyes trained forward.

You let out a little scoff, though you had to admit to yourself that you were relieved that he seemed to have put the worst of his bad attitude to rest, if only for this morning. “You can’t seem to decide what you want from me, Sam. Do you want me to tease you or not?”

He met your gaze and released a humored breath through his slender nose. “I go back and forth.”

You put on your most unamused tone to retort, “More than anyone I’ve ever met.”

The rest of that day was spent just getting acquainted with your new girls. You led them around the grounds as if they were your ducklings, answering any questions that popped into their heads, and by the time dinner rolled around, everything felt pretty comfy. They stuck to you like glue in the dining hall for the next couple of meals, but before you knew it, they were branching off and forming little groups of their own.

As the midwestern summer crawled forward, the weather started to become a little less forgiving. On the third day of that cycle, you were met with a muggy, dragging kind of morning as you stepped out for breakfast, and by the time you and your girls made it down to the archery range, sweat was already starting to bead along your brow.

Sam and his campers had beaten you there by a minute or two, and you tried to stamp out the warm and fuzzy feeling you got when you caught Sam on his haunches, helping one of his boys get his safety gear on correctly.

You counted yourself lucky that the activity was guided, giving both you and Sam plenty of leeway to dip in and out as you fancied. He’d been surprisingly...well, not upbeat, but he seemed to have been falling into a comfortable rhythm for the past few days, so you weren’t surprised to find he didn’t react poorly when you sought out where he was leaned against the side of the equipment shed, watching the kids figure out how to string their bows.

He didn’t greet you, but he was wearing the ghost of an amused expression as you asked, “Wanna sit?”

Before he could reply, you slid down the wood siding to the ground, not finding it in you to be bothered by your shorts getting dusty. After a second, he joined you, folding his long legs one over the other, crossing at the ankle.

All of his visible skin was tanned from the touch of the summer sun, contrasting deeply with the yellow camp shirt he’d chosen to wear. He was rolling the sleeves up as he cleared his throat.

“So, since it’s so fucking hot, they’re not going to make us haul all that shit back out into the woods tomorrow, right?”

“I’m afraid so,” you replied, but you’d only put on the sympathetic tone for his sake - you’d always loved the camping night, even when the conditions weren’t ideal. As you met his eyes, you were reminded of the last time you’d had to endure the experience with him.

He frowned annoyedly. “They’re not worried we’ll die of heatstroke?”

“If you can sit through the wilderness safety course they make us take and still die of something as preventable as heat stroke, I think they’d count it as natural selection,” you quipped in return, pulling your knees up to lean forward on.

He hummed, replying, “I could only be so lucky.”

“Oh, c’mon, Sam,” As you peeked over at him, your cheek brushed against the skin of your forearm and the slight sting was a tell-tale sign that you’d sweated off your sunscreen and were starting to burn. You fished the travel-sized bottle from your pocket to reapply as you finished, “Surely being here can’t be that bad. I imagine it must be better than prison.”

Despite himself, you could see him fighting to keep a smile from forming on his angular features. “You really think they’d let me out of a felony with community service? Especially working with kids?”

It was perfectly clear to both of you that you had been joking, but you were hopeful that maybe by prodding at the edges of the subject, you might stumble upon something worth knowing. “It was worth a shot,” you said with a shrug, tapping some of the sunscreen into the high points of your face with the pads of your fingers before offering the tube to him. Possibly just to surprise you, he accepted it, popping the cap before delivering his retort.

“If you’re going to dig for information, at least try for something plausible.” He rubbed the lotion into his skin in a circular motion, putting on a faux frown to scold you, “I really thought you were smarter than that.”

“Ha. I knew it.” As much as you tried to make your boasting sound like jesting, you found yourself genuinely flattered - not that you could ever let him know such a thing. He didn’t respond other than to smile forward, fixing his eyes on the kids.

For the first time you could recall since you’d met him, you felt as though you could take the silence that fell over you for what it was - it wasn’t uncomfortable or awkward. You were able to put it all out of your mind as you snuck a peek over at him, just as he was resting his head back against the wooden boards. You weren’t naïve enough to fool yourself into thinking that everything was going to be smooth sailing from there on out, but you couldn’t see the harm in pretending as his eyes slipped shut in favor of tipping his freshly protected face to the sun.

❀❀❀

“I’ve decided we’re going to do banana boats this time,” you informed Sam before you could even greet him. You’d agreed to meet him in the kitchen after breakfast, just like the last time you’d prepared for the camping trip, but this time, he seemed a little less miserable as you casually brushed past him through the doorway.

“You really want to carry all that extra shit out there?” he questioned, giving you an unconvinced expression as you pulled the coolers from the storage under the counters. After you nodded at him, he added, “Well, then that’s all on you. I’m not getting roped into your masochism.”

You rolled your eyes through a chiding smile. “C’mon, Sam. The kids will love it. As much as you try to convince me of the contrary, I know you like the feeling of making your boys happy.”

“They’re a lot easier to please than you seem to be aware of. They’re perfectly happy roasting hotdogs and sleeping in a tent like a homeless person for a night. Why add more work for everyone involved?”

Instead of responding to his stupid question, you just offered him a triumphant grin as you started to neatly pack handfuls of bananas into the cooler. “What are you gonna put in your banana boat?”

He met your teasing tone with a huff and roll of his eyes. “Cyanide capsules.”

“I don’t think the camp keeps those stocked. They seem like kind of a specialty item.”

“I keep a couple on me at all times for just such an occasion,” he assured, though he seemed to fully surrender to your idea as he pulled out a jar of peanut butter and a bag of milk chocolate chips from the pantry.

As he’d so tactlessly predicted, the hike out to the campsite wasn’t fun. The humidity from the lake seemed to be trapped in the density of the woods, leaving the surrounding air feeling thick as it filled your lungs with each breath. This round of kids were slightly better listeners than the last, but it was still only marginally - they still managed to make it feel like attempting to herd cats as you reminded them to stay on the trails.

To his credit, Sam didn’t complain in front of the kids about having to carry the extra supplies, but he made it a point to shoot you an unamused look as he slid the heavy cooler onto the wooden table. Luckily, you’d been able to gather that he was a lot stronger than his wiry frame would suggest.

This time, when you went over safety guidelines, you avoided setting the strict rules you’d drawn up last time, instead just firmly reminding the kids to be careful and aware of where they were in relation to the campsite at all times. As you watched Sam help the children gather firewood for the second time, you suddenly found yourself grateful that you hadn’t been assigned a younger age group - you think Josh might have been the only person you’d ever met patient enough to walk a group of six and seven year olds through this process. As it were, Sam happily accepted the little twigs and too-long sticks, all perfectly inappropriate for building a fire, and he let anyone who wanted to gather around and watch as he got the kindling ready.

Trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible, you observed him through dinner too. You watched him help the kids get their hotdogs on the skewers, and even cook some of them for the ones that were too nervous to get close to the fire. He even graciously applied the ketchup for a kid upon request, wearing a fond kind of smirk as he did so. You could only imagine the apathetic humor his inner monologue had suddenly shifted to.

You’d been considering it since the previous day, but it was because of these newly displayed, amiable behaviors that you decided you felt comfortable approaching him after dinner, holding a hollowed-out banana in a cradle of tin foil. When he spotted it in your hands, he huffed a laugh that was supposed to sound inconvenienced, despite the fact that his attention had been occupied by nothing more than watching the kids consume their treats from the sidelines.

“What do you want on yours?” you tried again, earning yourself a raised eyebrow. “I couldn’t find the cyanide.”

“I’m boycotting the bananas,” he stated, folding his arms over his slender form in defiance, though it did still seem playful.

“Are you sure? Because you’d think you’d want to reap the benefits of all your hard work.”

After a moment of studying it in consideration, he snatched it from your hands. “Fine. But I certainly don’t need nor want your help making it.”

Feeling a surge of bravery in the moment, you teasingly suggested, “Well, what if I just stand by you and comment on the way you’re making it?”

“Yeah, that’s much better,” he agreed, shoving forth the most sarcasm a person could use without it sounding cartoonish. “Not annoying at all.”

You’d had no intention of following through with your threat, but you did find yourself feeling unreasonably validated as he ate it by the fire with a white plastic fork, listening to a couple of your girls talk about their lives back home. It was almost charming to watch the same man that bit your head off the first time you ever laid eyes on him entertain a conversation about horse lessons.

You’d be lying if you were to say that it hadn’t crossed your mind throughout the day, but as you started settling into your tent for the night, you couldn’t clear your head of the first night - that first time you’d trekked all the way out here with him. As you fluffed your pillow in an attempt to make the next few hours even slightly more comfortable, you thought about how that was the first time he’d called an unspoken truce for the sake of the moment. It was the first time you felt that, now familiar, cautious optimism in his presence.

The consuming heat throughout the day had done a number on the kids; each and every one of them was out like a light in record time. After that, you laid on the hardwood floor of the tent and fought to keep your eyes open, which you instantly recognized as a stupid idea. You had no clue as to whether or not Sam was going to pull that same “smoke break” stunt again, and even then, there was absolutely no guarantee that you’d know if he did.

You strained to hear through the taut canvas, focusing on each and every little sound that felt out of place as if you were a prey animal. The edges of your thoughts were starting to blur, and you could feel your consciousness sinking inward as you were dragged toward sleep, but just before you lost it completely, you were snapped awake by the crunch of leaves and debris. The night sounds nearly swallowed it up, but the uncertain pattern of the steps was enough to catch your attention.

You’d opted to use your blankets as padding underneath you rather than sweat through the night, so nothing hindered you from scrambling from your spot on the floor. Pushing aside the flap of your tent, you found you couldn’t move an inch past the entrance before being met by a long pair of legs, bare from the thigh down.

You gathered the courage to lift your eyes until you were staring at the outline of Sam’s face in the dark.

As you stepped your bare foot out into the dirt, you saw his fingers twitch before he stuffed them into the pocket of his sleep shorts. You could almost convince yourself that he’d been intending to lend you his hand but thought better of it, and since there was no way he would catch it, you felt comfortable rolling your eyes exaggeratedly at his façade.

Once you were able to straighten out your tight muscles, you followed as he slowly led you back to that same log you’d sat on last time. Even once you were seated, leaving plenty of space in between, you were hesitant to speak, suddenly irrationally afraid that you’d open your mouth and accidentally misjudge your volume.

Still, as the moments passed by, it became apparent that he wasn’t going to be the first one to break the silence. You watched him reach behind his ear for a loose cigarette, pull a white lighter from his pocket, and take a first drag before you finally decided to chance it.

“Why were you standing outside my tent?” you asked under your breath, earning yourself a cool tone painted over his reply.

“Because I knew you were still awake and waiting for me.”

For a second, you considered not pressing the matter further, but before you could put any real thought into it, you blurted, “How?”

Equally as flat as his last statement, he uttered a simple, “I just did.” You weren’t entirely sure how you were meant to respond to the thought, but luckily, he didn’t force you to sit with the uncertainty for long before he finally looked over at you, cigarette hanging from his lips. “I’ve told you before that you’re almost too predictable.”

You raised an eyebrow at him, feeling a slight sting in the center of your chest. Pointing with your thumb over your shoulder towards your tent, you challenged him, “Should I just go back to bed then?”

Sam held your stare as a little smirk spread across his lips. “You’re bluffing.”

As much as you hated to admit it, he was right, but once he’d voiced it, you felt you had no choice but to prove him wrong. You stood and turned, but just before you could take the first step to head back, you felt his fingers wrap around your wrist. You hadn’t been expecting him to touch you. You could have expected a snide comment or a smug kind of “good night”, but you never would have guessed that he’d touch you intentionally.

It was done and over so quickly - he withdrew his hand almost instantly, but you couldn’t see a shred of apology on his features. Instead, he sounded annoyed, though you had your suspicions that it was mostly just to smother his embarrassment.

“Just sit.”

You shot him a pointed look. “Then scrap every shitty little remark you have loaded for me.”

“What, all of them?” he asked, and though you could only see his profile, obscured by the shadows, you caught the sudden warmth coloring his tone.

“Yes. Talk to me like a normal human being, Sam.”

He hummed amusedly. “Like you’re a normal human being, or like I am?”

“Both!” you laughed incredulously, mentally scolding yourself for letting your volume creep up.

“What do normal people even talk about? I’ve been in this circle of hell so long, I think I’ve forgotten.”

A scoffing laugh left your parted lips as you rolled your eyes at him. “You’re so melodramatic. Despite your efforts, I think you’re enjoying yourself here.” His head snapped over so he could look at you, but before he could find a way to turn that into an insult, you added, “And all of our kids obviously love having you here. Maybe it’s okay for you to let yourself have a nice time.”

“No,” he declined, the sharp simplicity of it bringing you to suppress another laugh.

“Y’know, Sam,” you started cautiously, keeping your demeanor playful as you edged around the subject. “You might be here as a punishment, but if you actually end up liking it, then it’s not really a punishment at all, is it? You get to get away with...whatever it was scot-free.”

A snicker made the shape of his shoulders shake next to you. “You’re absolutely relentless.”

The fact that he’d seen right through to your real intentions didn’t deter a grin from spreading across your lips at his mock-scolding, especially since he couldn’t seem to keep it from sounding admiring.

“You really want to know what I did that bad?”

You nodded at him, not feeling a shred of the shame you once did about your curiosity.

“You know you could just look it up, right?” Since you were undoubtedly donning a confused expression, he graciously added, “All criminal proceedings are public record. And, since we’re living in the year 2022, you could look it up on your phone and know within seconds. You could know right this second.”

The way he pointedly separated the last three words caused you to swallow back an unexpected lump in your throat. You were far too embarrassed to vocalize that you hadn’t come across that idea naturally, but it must have been perfectly obvious.

You hadn’t even been trying to come up with a response in the few long seconds that passed; all of your brain power was being used to process each unspoken implication of him telling you this - and, of you not coming to the conclusion on your own.

He took the silent moment as an opportunity to turn his body towards you on the log, just a little more, so he could really make a meal of it as he asked, “So, are you going to do it? Since you want to know so bad.”

Without having to think about it for even a second, all you could do was slowly shake your head.

“Why not?” he pressed, leaving the question dripping in an obvious faux confusion. He stubbed out his barely-smoked cigarette on the bark of a tree until none of it was left burning and then turned around to casually toss the butt into the firepit.

There was no answer you could produce that would satisfy him, so you just shrugged weakly, offering a smile of surrender in hopes that would be enough.

The moment could have dragged on forever; there were so many forms it could have taken. Instead, you both silently decided to let it die. It wasn’t long after that he stood, prompting you to do the same. He led the way back to the tents, and just as you wrapped your fingers in the canvas, you risked bidding him a soft “good night”.

His stride faltered a bit as he peered back over his shoulder at you, and for a moment, you held your breath in fear that it would go unacknowledged. You couldn’t tell if he was debating what he wanted to say, or if he was trying to figure out if you’d said anything at all - it had been quiet, somewhat eaten by the sound of a lively forest at night.

Finally, with an undeniable fondness, he uttered, “Go to sleep.”

❀❀❀

As it reached the end of the first week of the second cycle, your kids started gaining confidence. Like the last batch before them, day by day you were accompanied by fewer and fewer of them any time they weren’t required to be by your side, but that bittersweet feeling found itself diluted by the appreciation for privacy.

You were back to being able to openly chat with Josh over meals without the fear of saying something inappropriate for little ears. His counseling partner, Ashley, very clearly seemed to be spreading her wings as a social butterfly; it wasn’t uncommon to see her sitting at a table of counselors you’d never learned a single thing about. Sam, however, remained the opposite. In the three weeks you’d known him, you’d only witnessed him a handful of times talking to someone other than you or Josh, and he seemed to be perfectly content that way.

He was accompanying Josh when they walked into the dining hall on the evening of the ninth day of the second cycle. You’d gotten there a bit early, hungrier than usual because you hadn’t liked what they’d served at breakfast that morning, and you hadn’t gotten around to asking Sam if he still had pop-tarts, though you hadn’t really stopped dreaming about them throughout the day.

“Boys,” you noted in greeting as they slid into the seats across from you. “Josh, you’re really starting to turn pink.”

He lifted his eyes to you from his tray to offer a crooked smile. “I always do - every summer.”

“I packed enough sunscreen to share, if you want. Otherwise, I know the camp has plenty ready upon request.” Glancing over the rosy stripe across his otherwise-tanned face, you counted yourself lucky to not be stuck with it - it looked like it would sting.

“I have some,” he declined gratefully. “I just always get busy and forget to reapply it throughout the day.”

Tone a teasing kind of chiding, you replied, “Do you need me to send you reminder texts periodically?”

Sam had his expression schooled to look bored beyond an attention span as he ran a fork through his pile of mixed vegetables, but you could tell that he was listening by the little roll of his eyes at your offer. Since there wasn’t really any way you could confront it without turning the whole conversation on its side, you decided to let it go.

“Did you see what the special activity is for this cycle?” Josh asked, making an admirable effort at containing his anticipation to tell you. You let a laugh slip as you shook your head.

“Well, on the way over here, we saw camp faculty unloading a huge trailer full of canoes down by the docks, so I’m guessing it’s that,” Josh informed the group of you as a whole, earning an impatient expression when he gently smacked Sam’s bicep. “Isn’t that so exciting, Samuel?”

There was a strange kind of smug quality to his prodding, something teasing but not lacking in his usual warmth. You’d imagine it would drive you to rage if he were your brother, but since he’s just what you’ve come to consider a best friend, it was inching towards endearing.

The next line from Sam’s mouth was so weighted with sarcasm that it came out as more of a drawl. “I’ve never been more excited in my whole life up to this point, to be honest, Joshua.”

As your eyes flicked back and forth between them, you decided that it could only be a good idea to shift the focus from Sam, so you fixed your eyes on Josh, waiting until you had his full attention before jesting, “So, you don’t even really know if that’s what our special activity is - you just saw some canoes and made an assumption?”

He flashed you a grin. “Seemed like a safe bet to me.”

After chewing it over in your head, you nodded in agreement. “That does sound like it has the potential to be a lot of fun.”

“Right?” Josh half-gushed at the sentiment, thrilled to have you on board. “I hope the canoes are still around when the campers leave because I wanna take one of those things solo.”

“Yeah, like a night excursion!”

“Should we?”

Sam let out a dry laugh, absently tapping his fingers on the tabletop as he remarked, “It sounds like you two are begging for some kind of tragedy.”

“Oh, now you want to take the moral high ground on safety?” Josh jested him, causing Sam’s eyes to flick over at you.

You could assume that Josh was referencing whatever mysterious thing had put Sam here in the first place, and with that in mind, it wasn’t hard to figure out that he was gauging your reaction to it, trying to surmise whether or not you had clued yourself in on the secret.

Of course, you hadn’t. It had evolved into such forbidden knowledge in your head - in the mythos of Sam, it was borderline folklore to you. You were certain that simply “googling” it would remove all the fun of trying to find out, in a way that Sam telling you personally would not.

You raised your eyebrows at him expectantly. It was clear as day to you that he was fighting back a smirk, but once he regained his grip on his composure, he let out a breath and stated, “Even I wouldn’t do something that stupid.”

There was a very unserious self-righteousness to Josh’s quip as he teased, “Well, then consider yourself uninvited.”

Sam scoffed, unscrewing the cap of his camp-branded, metal water bottle. “That doesn’t mean a whole lot to me since I didn’t know I was invited in the first place,” he retorted, firmly cementing your theory that he’d annihilate the competition for the camp’s most passive aggressive award, if such an ill-intentioned thing existed.

As if he were barely a part of the conversation at all, Josh stood without warning, offering you a vaguely apologetic expression as he nodded across the room to where Ashley was sitting with a group of their kids. “I’ll be right back, I’m going to just make sure everything’s okay.”

You couldn’t help but notice that his tone wasn’t really what you’d describe as concerned. Glancing in that direction, you saw them all wearing smiles as they chatted around a circular table, some of them even visibly laughing. “Josh, I think they’re fine-”

Before you could finish the thought, he cut it short, waving you off with the casual assurance, “I’ll be back before my food gets cold.”

Without a shred of haste, he followed a path through the dining furniture and children, even slowing to warmly greet people that recognized him as he went. It all felt a little out of place to you, which was why you still carried the remnants of suspicion as you brought yourself back to your present company - whom you had briefly forgotten was Sam with all the sudden distraction.

You cleared your throat once you remembered what it was you were even talking about. “Anyway. Of course, you’re invited,” you stated once you met his eyes again. “I think that was all mostly a joke though. I cannot imagine Josh would paddle out in the dark on an open lake, but then again, I don’t know him like you do.”

You’d thought that since the conversation with Josh had felt so light and playful, you could just pick back up on it, but Sam’s sharp features molded into an expression of irritation. When you realized he wasn’t going to say anything, you parted your lips and bravely chanced, “Do Josh and I make you feel left out? Because, if you wanted to do stuff with us-”

“I don’t,” he stated confidently, setting his fork down in its slot on the tray as if he were preparing for a quick getaway.

You smiled at him, finding genuine amusement for the situation as a whole. “Right, obviously,” you quipped with playful sarcasm, letting your eyes scan over his guarded posture. “If it makes you feel any better, I just assume that you’ll be tagging along with Josh for anything we plan.”

This time, when he lifted his eyes to yours, you were concerned to find that there was something genuine behind the angry frown he was wearing. Out of all the negative interactions you’d ever had with him, the worst it ever got was “deep irritation”, but you’d accidentally touched a nerve, and the evidence was being poorly disguised in his features.

“Well, shocking as it may be to you, it does not make me feel better to know I’m seen as an inconvenience that you have to deal with when you want to see my brother,” he declined, impressively managing to keep his tone level despite how tight his jaw was.

You shook your head quickly, naively hoping you could bring him back to you. “I didn’t say that, Sam. You’re putting words in my mouth.”

“Do you think I’m too stupid to understand implication?”

You could lay awake in your bed all night long fantasizing about how you’d respond to certain scenarios, but living them in real time was different. There wasn’t any room for you to think about what you were going to say, since you knew it was only a matter of time before he removed himself from the situation - because, to his credit, he was fantastic at that. That lack of retrospect and time sparked a sense of panic behind your ribs, and that was what caused you to snap at him.

“Why do you always do this, Sam? Things finally start to feel a little better and then you start looking for something to get pissed off about. The only reason that came out wrong was because I never know where the fuck we stand from day to day - sometimes even moment to moment.”

His muscles were pulled taut as he listened to you air your grievances, but you couldn’t tell if the lack of picturesque rage was because he was winding down, or because he was so angry that he couldn’t even emote properly.

“It’s so fucking exhausting to be around you because I never know if you’ve decided to be an adult that morning or not.”

The second it left your mouth, you wished you could suck it back in. In real time, you watched as he grit his teeth, his fingers curling in on themselves until his knuckles were white, and that’s exactly how Josh found you when he made it back to the table. He’d had his mouth open to make a joke as he got nearer, but he correctly decided against it once he’d gotten a taste of the new mood that had settled in his absence.

As he slowly sunk down into his seat, his wide eyes curiously flicked back and forth between the two of you.

After a second, he pursed his lips, worrying them together before cautiously asking, “Oh boy. This got worse, didn’t it?”

“It’s fine. I was just leaving,” Sam stated coldly, gripping both sides of his tray a little too tightly to look natural.

“Of course, you are.” The familiar hurt in your chest gave the pointless remark a biting quality as you finally pulled your eyes from him, folding your arms over your chest as he stood.

He didn’t say anything else, or even look back as he dumped the remainder of his food in the bin and then headed out the doors, but you could only imagine what kind of lamentations and curses were bouncing around in his skull.

You were a million miles away from your body, staring through the top of the table as the adrenaline made your mind race. In your head, you were picking through every interaction you’d had with Sam up to that point as if they were index cards, barely aware that Josh was surveying the process while he bit a chunk out of an apple.

It was then that you began tugging on a thread in your brain. The night of the party at Birch faded from your memory after a certain point, but if you focused all your energy on it, you could recall pieces of the walk back to your cabin with Sam. Since you weren’t really familiar with them, you couldn’t be certain that the memories you were resurfacing weren’t false, but some of it was tangible enough.

Josh opted for silence as the atmosphere in the room depressurized, and once he decided you’d had enough time to process, he caught your attention to say, “I’m sorry that went in a bad direction.”

You lifted your eyes to acknowledge that you’d heard him, but your mental queue was too full to piece together a reply. You stared across at him for a few dragging seconds before feeling collected enough to speak.

Keeping your volume low so that only he could hear it, you cautiously stated, “I think I might have accidentally let myself...like Sam.”

Josh stared at you blankly for a long moment before his lips finally turned up into a sentimental, wistful smile. As he planted his elbow into the table and let his chin settle into his cupped palm, he dreamily declared, “I love camp.”

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#pink lemonade #sam kiszka fic #greta van fleet fan fiction #sam kiszka fan fiction

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