Build A City Challenge - Weivtnasaelp, Week 3
A new house, but the same old neighbors - with all the strangeness that involves. The new place had been built off their old profits - a huge, sprawling three-story building meant for a very large family. They were down to their last twelve dollars when the Pleasants showed up with a 'welcome back' cheese-and-sausage basket, but better to be prepared considering last time . .
Especially since that things hadn't really changed between them - a simple glance across the yard could end up in a snogging spree on the lawn (to say the least).
((BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Right after smoochies Samson got hit by lightning! Oh man this is awesome!))
No, things hadn't changed between them one bit.
Sure,. some of the new neighbors were dicks. Funds were tight. Things could be better - but they were better than things had been, and they had their health and home now.
But the bakery was a rampaging success! A good thing too, since their shenanigans were already bearing fruit.
The impending sproglet kind of fruit. Both of them were rather worried about this - with the hospital still being funded, let alone built, there was no predicting how many either of them would be carrying. And last time was still the unspoken purple elephant in the room. More than once Dean thought it'd literally kill him to lose all his children again. Even though their new parents let him and Samson visit . . it just wasn't the same.
Would never be the same.
Much to Dean's relief (and bemusement), there was only one child - a little girl they named Delilah. And after taking care of four screaming infants at once, a single sproglet was a snap. Except for the finances - they barely had enough to get her a crib, let alone enough diapers for the rest of the winter. Samson was distracted by making sure their daughter was comfortable that first night, and collapsed in exhaustion to sleep off the all-nighter come dawn.
Samson barely heard Dean mutter about 'finding treasure in the lawn' before he slipped into unconsciousness.
Dean woke groggy, incoherent, and to an oddly echo-y home. It wasn't until midway through his bath that he realized that the Grim Reaper had already come and gone. The little family had grown and shrunk in under twenty-four hours, and all there was left to do was call the Gravetender to pick up the urn for burial.
The next few days passed in a numb, blank haze - even little Delilah was barely able to stir Samson from the void he seemed to be working in. Almost by rote he cared for the wee baby, noting her progress in her baby book (a necessity for the few people with medical training in the budding colony) in brief sentences.
There was too much to do - a baby, a business languishing un-opened, and a household to keep funded. When he wasn't cleaning, or tending Delilah, Samson's hands were gripping the shovel and meticulously going through every bit of soil on the yard. He'd heard the horror stories from the other colonists. He wasn't going to risk there being a disturbed grave on the grounds, that Dean might - he couldn't even think on that.
Not when he still couldn't even figure out what had happened, or stop thinking about it in some distant part of his mind.
Waking in his jambalaya to the other plate sitting there and going cold was the last straw.
Emotionally, he wasn't ready. But he simply couldn't handle it all on his own anymore. So Samson made the call.
And the damned woman had a monopoly on not just the town matchmaking market, but on finding housemates. After the day's digging, he definitely had enough to pay the top fee - and safety of mind. The only grave goods left had been a few caches buried with now-moved ex-living-aliens. A valuable commodity on the local market.
He bit his cheek at the pang Willy Tinker's smitten smile gave. The man wasn't too much younger, and had heartbreakingly sweet eyes.
The meet-up went incredibly well. Conversation flowed naturally, and for the first time in days the numbness ebbed away a bit at a time, not in the crushing tide of waves that left Samson weeping out his grief in the middle of the night. Willy seemed to count every smile as a treat and a victory, outright hunting for ways to coax out yet another.
Explaining things went a lot better than he'd expected - had even dared hope for. Willy apparently didn't even care that Samson wasn't ready for anything other than a housemate and friend. He was willing, wanted, to help however he could. Just to be a friend (and dote on the baby). It had been obvious that Willy had fallen head over heels in parental love for wee Delilah the first moment she smiled at him.
By dawn, the living contract had been signed, sealed, and hugged over. And if Willy's smile was a little wistful, Samson politely didn't notice.
After he moved in, Willy fell easily into the routine of the household - keeping things clean and tending little Delilah while Samson was out. The bakery was registered in Samson's name, and honestly Willy didn't know a damned thing about baking.
And frankly Samson was far better at handling all the weird people that shopped for raisin nut muffins. Willy was also sure the socializing was helping Sams cope with his mourning.
------
It was nearly spring.
Things were better - of course they were! - and the heavy gloom, grief, and tension seemed to be ebbing with the increased sunshine.
Of course Willy was doing his best to help speed things along as well!
And he'd picked up a hobby that'd help as Delilah grew bigger - it was far cheaper to make clothes for than to buy clothes for a baby. And with the general baby boom going on in town, always someone needing to buy something. There was probably something else still in the yard to sell . . but this felt better to Willy. Sure, grave goods had saved the family in lean times, but he didn't want to rely on it to keep things going.
And he had something he wanted to buy.
And on the first day of spring . . .
. . . he made his move. "Samson, I love you. I want to marry you, and nothing would make me happier if you would accept my ring. I can wait however long it takes until you feel you're ready, but I needed to let you know."
