fic: the story so far
Characters: Jess/Sam
Rating: R
Words: ~1,600
Summary: Some days she’s still surprised when she wakes and she isn’t alone.
A/N: fandomaid fic written for counteragent. Many thanks to downjune for beta-reading.
on ao3
the story so far
Jess doesn’t tell Sam she knows it’s his birthday.
They’ve been together for a few months now and the newness of being with Sam is wearing off a little, giving way to knowledge, to expectations. After he stays the night, she likes waking up knowing he’ll have made coffee the way she likes it (she’s not a morning person, but he is). They cook together on some evenings, do laundry together most Saturday afternoons. The apartment that she rented a couple of weeks before she met him still smells of paint. Behind Sam’s back, Brady teases her, saying they’ll truly be domesticated if they go and pick wallpaper together. She doesn’t mind. There are still things to discover about Sam, to learn with him, and some days she’s still surprised when she wakes and she isn’t alone.
She buys him a cupcake-chocolate, because that’s his favorite-and one of those sparkler candles that lets off little multicolored fragments of light and doesn’t go out, no matter how much you blow on it. She’s got it lit when she hears his key in the lock, right on time.
He looks from the little cake to her face in surprise. ‘What is this?’
‘Happy birthday?’ she says.
He lets his bag slip off his shoulder to the floor. ‘This is-how’d you know?’
She shrugs. ‘I have my ways.’ His face is still blank and her heart lurches a little, and she wonders if she’s made a mistake. Maybe he associates something horrible with his birthday. Fuck.
Then he steps up close to her, draws her closer, his hand cupping her elbow carefully. ‘Thank you,’ he says into her hair.
They sit on the couch and he removes the candle and puts it out carefully, pinching the light between thumb and forefinger as if he can’t feel the heat at all, and she’s reminded of a line from a film. The trick is not minding that it hurts.
He breaks off a bit of cake and slides it into her mouth, his fingertips lingering. A bit of chocolate chip melts on her tongue and she leans in to kiss him. ‘Tell me what you want,’ she says against his mouth. He tells her, unabashed.
She takes him on his back, her strap-on deep inside him, its base vibrating against her clit as she fucks him, his thighs bracketing her hips, Sam tugging her head down for a kiss, gasping into her mouth as she moves her hips the way he likes. They’ve done this only once before but she’s good at remembering things, learning bodies. This is something they’ve learned quickly-how to fit together, although Jess sometimes thinks of it as crossing over rather than fitting, like reaching an unknown shore in the dark and finding that one has a foothold there after all.
Afterwards, they take a bottle of Chardonnay and armfuls of blankets out to the terrace and she lies back against him, her body fitting into the V between his legs, his arms bare and warm around her. She half-turns to press her lips to his chest. ‘You okay?’ she asks.
‘Yeah,’ he says, sounding a little surprised. ‘I’m good, Jess.’ He nuzzles into her hair and she’s amazed, not for the first time, at how openly affectionate he is. ‘You?’ he asks, lifting a glass to her lips, and she takes a sip of the cool white wine before tilting her head back to look at him.
‘I’m great,’ she grins, kissing him quickly on the lips. She knows she’s overcompensating. He’s a little quiet tonight and she isn’t sure that she’s entirely comfortable with long stretches of silence between them, but she’s learning that Sam doesn’t mind, that one of his favorite things to do is to lie with her in his arms and let his mind drift.
‘Move in with me?’ she asks after a while. They’ve talked about it before, but she hasn’t actually asked him. Not really.
His arms tighten briefly around her. ‘You’re sure?’ he says. ‘I can be a pain to live with, you know.’
‘I’ll take my chances.’ She squeezes their interlinked fingers, bringing his hand up to her mouth and pressing a kiss into the center of his palm.
--
‘This is my home number,’ Jess says, scribbling it down on a piece of paper and sticking it to the fridge under a strawberry-shaped magnet.
‘In case I somehow lose your cell phone number over the next seven days?’ Sam teases.
Jess laughs. ‘You never know,’ she says, ruffling his hair, letting her hand settle on top of his head for a moment. She’s a little uneasy, leaving him for a week. He’d offered to go back to the dorm while she was away, mistaking her uneasiness for apprehension about letting him have her apartment to himself while she was gone. He hasn’t mentioned any family and she doesn’t know how to ask if there’s nowhere he’d rather go than stay at school for the week-long break.
He drives her to the airport and kisses her goodbye outside the terminal. She calls him that night after dinner. It goes straight to voice mail, and she hangs up without leaving a message. It’s oddly difficult to figure out what to say.
--
He calls her back the next morning. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Sorry I missed your call last night. I kind of went to bed early.’
‘Sam, are you okay?’
‘You keep asking me that,’ he says, sounding a little amused. ‘I’m fine. I’m just-’
‘Just what?’
‘We’ll talk when you get home,’ he says. ‘Okay? I promise. You have a good time. I’ll see you soon.’
--
Sam’s not home when she gets back. She opens the closet and finds that his clothes are gone. There’s a post-it stuck to the top of the night table beside the bed. I’ll call you.
She takes that to mean Don’t call me, and she doesn’t.
She doesn’t see Sam all week. In Social Psych, her gaze falls on his usual chair by the window. It’s empty, brightly lit by the afternoon sun.
--
When she gets back to the apartment that evening, he’s sitting on the steps out front, his backpack beside him.
‘Did you lose your key?’ she asks.
He shakes his head, his face turned up to her. She wants to reach down and brush his soft hair out of his eyes, but this seems like a scene of their story she doesn’t know yet, the script unknown to her.
‘Is it okay if I come in?’ he asks.
She moves up the stairs, leaving him behind, puts a hand on top of his head without turning around. He leans his head against her calf, his breath warm on her bare skin.
--
The plants are wilting a little. She slides her bag off her arm, on to the couch, and goes to fetch the watering can.
‘Brady said he’d come by and water them,’ Sam says, a little sheepish. ‘He must’ve forgotten.’
She shrugs. ‘They’ll live. Good thing we didn’t get a cat, huh?’ She imagines getting back home and finding a little dried-up corpse on the carpet, and shudders.
‘Jess.’ He comes up behind her, his fingers tentative at her waist. ‘Jess, I’m so sorry. There was-there was just. Something I had to do.’
‘Okay.’ She brushes her hair out of her eyes, her hand still wet from running the water into the can. ‘Are you back now?’
‘If you want me to be back.’
‘Okay.’ She gives him a smile, the most that she can give right then.
He puts his clothes back in the closet, and they don’t speak again of the week that he went away and almost didn’t come back.
--
Cutting her summer break short, Jess gets back home a week early after being away for over a month. She's tired of family time, and wants her own bed, her books, Sam. He’s been working hard, studying for the LSATs and doing a tutoring job at the summer school, and they haven’t talked much.
Her flight is two hours late. He’s sitting at the edge of the bed when she walks into the bedroom, and he looks as exhausted as she feels.
‘Jess?’ he says, and their hands fumble together for the lamp switch.
‘Fuck, Sam, what happened? You look like hell.’ She sits down beside him, puts a hand to his forehead. He isn’t warm.
‘I dunno. Just... just a nightmare, I guess.’ He leans into her, his face against her neck. ‘I’m glad you’re back.’
‘Me too.’ She smoothes her hand down his back, feeling the familiar cotton of his old Zeppelin t-shirt under her palm. Her hand slides beneath the sleep-rumpled cloth, presses against his skin. ‘I love you, you know.’ She’s said it before, but not to him. It’s not some big declaration of love, not something she’s imagined saying to him. But it’s real all the same, the words out of her mouth before she realizes she’s spent the last few months falling quietly for him.
They hold each other in the light from the lamp, his hand on her knee, just below the hem of her short white summer dress, her hand rubbing up and down his arm. ‘Me too,’ he says then, as if this is a dialogue that’s familiar to them, the words falling quietly on her skin like rain.
-end-
Rating: R
Words: ~1,600
Summary: Some days she’s still surprised when she wakes and she isn’t alone.
A/N: fandomaid fic written for counteragent. Many thanks to downjune for beta-reading.
on ao3
the story so far
Jess doesn’t tell Sam she knows it’s his birthday.
They’ve been together for a few months now and the newness of being with Sam is wearing off a little, giving way to knowledge, to expectations. After he stays the night, she likes waking up knowing he’ll have made coffee the way she likes it (she’s not a morning person, but he is). They cook together on some evenings, do laundry together most Saturday afternoons. The apartment that she rented a couple of weeks before she met him still smells of paint. Behind Sam’s back, Brady teases her, saying they’ll truly be domesticated if they go and pick wallpaper together. She doesn’t mind. There are still things to discover about Sam, to learn with him, and some days she’s still surprised when she wakes and she isn’t alone.
She buys him a cupcake-chocolate, because that’s his favorite-and one of those sparkler candles that lets off little multicolored fragments of light and doesn’t go out, no matter how much you blow on it. She’s got it lit when she hears his key in the lock, right on time.
He looks from the little cake to her face in surprise. ‘What is this?’
‘Happy birthday?’ she says.
He lets his bag slip off his shoulder to the floor. ‘This is-how’d you know?’
She shrugs. ‘I have my ways.’ His face is still blank and her heart lurches a little, and she wonders if she’s made a mistake. Maybe he associates something horrible with his birthday. Fuck.
Then he steps up close to her, draws her closer, his hand cupping her elbow carefully. ‘Thank you,’ he says into her hair.
They sit on the couch and he removes the candle and puts it out carefully, pinching the light between thumb and forefinger as if he can’t feel the heat at all, and she’s reminded of a line from a film. The trick is not minding that it hurts.
He breaks off a bit of cake and slides it into her mouth, his fingertips lingering. A bit of chocolate chip melts on her tongue and she leans in to kiss him. ‘Tell me what you want,’ she says against his mouth. He tells her, unabashed.
She takes him on his back, her strap-on deep inside him, its base vibrating against her clit as she fucks him, his thighs bracketing her hips, Sam tugging her head down for a kiss, gasping into her mouth as she moves her hips the way he likes. They’ve done this only once before but she’s good at remembering things, learning bodies. This is something they’ve learned quickly-how to fit together, although Jess sometimes thinks of it as crossing over rather than fitting, like reaching an unknown shore in the dark and finding that one has a foothold there after all.
Afterwards, they take a bottle of Chardonnay and armfuls of blankets out to the terrace and she lies back against him, her body fitting into the V between his legs, his arms bare and warm around her. She half-turns to press her lips to his chest. ‘You okay?’ she asks.
‘Yeah,’ he says, sounding a little surprised. ‘I’m good, Jess.’ He nuzzles into her hair and she’s amazed, not for the first time, at how openly affectionate he is. ‘You?’ he asks, lifting a glass to her lips, and she takes a sip of the cool white wine before tilting her head back to look at him.
‘I’m great,’ she grins, kissing him quickly on the lips. She knows she’s overcompensating. He’s a little quiet tonight and she isn’t sure that she’s entirely comfortable with long stretches of silence between them, but she’s learning that Sam doesn’t mind, that one of his favorite things to do is to lie with her in his arms and let his mind drift.
‘Move in with me?’ she asks after a while. They’ve talked about it before, but she hasn’t actually asked him. Not really.
His arms tighten briefly around her. ‘You’re sure?’ he says. ‘I can be a pain to live with, you know.’
‘I’ll take my chances.’ She squeezes their interlinked fingers, bringing his hand up to her mouth and pressing a kiss into the center of his palm.
--
‘This is my home number,’ Jess says, scribbling it down on a piece of paper and sticking it to the fridge under a strawberry-shaped magnet.
‘In case I somehow lose your cell phone number over the next seven days?’ Sam teases.
Jess laughs. ‘You never know,’ she says, ruffling his hair, letting her hand settle on top of his head for a moment. She’s a little uneasy, leaving him for a week. He’d offered to go back to the dorm while she was away, mistaking her uneasiness for apprehension about letting him have her apartment to himself while she was gone. He hasn’t mentioned any family and she doesn’t know how to ask if there’s nowhere he’d rather go than stay at school for the week-long break.
He drives her to the airport and kisses her goodbye outside the terminal. She calls him that night after dinner. It goes straight to voice mail, and she hangs up without leaving a message. It’s oddly difficult to figure out what to say.
--
He calls her back the next morning. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Sorry I missed your call last night. I kind of went to bed early.’
‘Sam, are you okay?’
‘You keep asking me that,’ he says, sounding a little amused. ‘I’m fine. I’m just-’
‘Just what?’
‘We’ll talk when you get home,’ he says. ‘Okay? I promise. You have a good time. I’ll see you soon.’
--
Sam’s not home when she gets back. She opens the closet and finds that his clothes are gone. There’s a post-it stuck to the top of the night table beside the bed. I’ll call you.
She takes that to mean Don’t call me, and she doesn’t.
She doesn’t see Sam all week. In Social Psych, her gaze falls on his usual chair by the window. It’s empty, brightly lit by the afternoon sun.
--
When she gets back to the apartment that evening, he’s sitting on the steps out front, his backpack beside him.
‘Did you lose your key?’ she asks.
He shakes his head, his face turned up to her. She wants to reach down and brush his soft hair out of his eyes, but this seems like a scene of their story she doesn’t know yet, the script unknown to her.
‘Is it okay if I come in?’ he asks.
She moves up the stairs, leaving him behind, puts a hand on top of his head without turning around. He leans his head against her calf, his breath warm on her bare skin.
--
The plants are wilting a little. She slides her bag off her arm, on to the couch, and goes to fetch the watering can.
‘Brady said he’d come by and water them,’ Sam says, a little sheepish. ‘He must’ve forgotten.’
She shrugs. ‘They’ll live. Good thing we didn’t get a cat, huh?’ She imagines getting back home and finding a little dried-up corpse on the carpet, and shudders.
‘Jess.’ He comes up behind her, his fingers tentative at her waist. ‘Jess, I’m so sorry. There was-there was just. Something I had to do.’
‘Okay.’ She brushes her hair out of her eyes, her hand still wet from running the water into the can. ‘Are you back now?’
‘If you want me to be back.’
‘Okay.’ She gives him a smile, the most that she can give right then.
He puts his clothes back in the closet, and they don’t speak again of the week that he went away and almost didn’t come back.
--
Cutting her summer break short, Jess gets back home a week early after being away for over a month. She's tired of family time, and wants her own bed, her books, Sam. He’s been working hard, studying for the LSATs and doing a tutoring job at the summer school, and they haven’t talked much.
Her flight is two hours late. He’s sitting at the edge of the bed when she walks into the bedroom, and he looks as exhausted as she feels.
‘Jess?’ he says, and their hands fumble together for the lamp switch.
‘Fuck, Sam, what happened? You look like hell.’ She sits down beside him, puts a hand to his forehead. He isn’t warm.
‘I dunno. Just... just a nightmare, I guess.’ He leans into her, his face against her neck. ‘I’m glad you’re back.’
‘Me too.’ She smoothes her hand down his back, feeling the familiar cotton of his old Zeppelin t-shirt under her palm. Her hand slides beneath the sleep-rumpled cloth, presses against his skin. ‘I love you, you know.’ She’s said it before, but not to him. It’s not some big declaration of love, not something she’s imagined saying to him. But it’s real all the same, the words out of her mouth before she realizes she’s spent the last few months falling quietly for him.
They hold each other in the light from the lamp, his hand on her knee, just below the hem of her short white summer dress, her hand rubbing up and down his arm. ‘Me too,’ he says then, as if this is a dialogue that’s familiar to them, the words falling quietly on her skin like rain.
-end-