Sage wakes and he's forgotten where he is, has forgotten his name, has forgotten everything but what it feels like to be in Sam's mouth, to have him on his knees, to be trembling and begging for more. Which is to say, Sage wakes up horny and hard.

     This thing between him and Sam is tenuous. He doesn't want to risk ruining it by them getting caught, feels like that's the unspoken rule — that nobody knows about them. And that's fine. He's okay with that. Well — he's not, but he can be. There's only one issue. When Sage came home yesterday, he most definitely did not have a fat hickey on his neck. And now he most definitely does.

     It is very obvious and very apparent against his fair skin, a harsh contrasting red the size of Sam's mouth. There's no mistaking it for anything other than what it is.

     So he is definitely panicking, furiously googling ways to get rid of a hickey while he avoids his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He kind of thinks it's worth it. If everything's about to go up in flames over a hickey, at least he got last night out of it. But then he kind of thinks fuck that. Because he wants more last nights.

     If his hair was long enough, he'd get Calla's curling iron and burn himself under the pretense of trying something new. He thinks of other injuries he can inflict upon himself that'll provide an alibi for the mark on his neck. Falling down the stairs? He's more likely to break his neck.

     He needs a cover story. Or... he just needs to cover the story.

     Sage is outside Calla's bedroom. His parents bedroom door is open but they're downstairs. He can hear them moving around the kitchen. His dad's probably making breakfast. He knocks and waits but when he gets no response, he knocks again and says, "Cal, can I come in?"

     There's a distant affirmative remark so he opens the door and walks inside. Calla's room is notably neat for her, but that's not to say that it's exactly clean. She's curled up in the armchair by her unmade bed, watching the TV mounted on the wall across from her. She doesn't pull her eyes away when Sage enters.

     "You know I watch this show and I really want to, like, punch myself in the face for sympathizing with Joe so much," she says as a greeting. Sage glances at her television screen as he moves closer. She's watching You. 

     "I need your help but I need it without any questions," he says stopping a few feet away from her.

     Calla pulls her gaze away from her show to look at him and chokes on her laughter, slapping a hand over her mouth to cover it. "No, no, no. No freaking way. Please tell me this was Sam. It had to have been, Sam, right? I'm freaking dead."

     She drops her voice when she says, "Wait this happened in the house? With mom and dad here? That's bold."

     "Calla," Sage groans. "Can you help me or not?"

     Calla stares at him and Sage is flushing, embarrassed that it's come to this and that he is making his sister very aware of the fact he's sexually active. She no doubt knew but it's different, weirder, when you present it with evidence.

     "Tell me this was Sam," she demands.

     And there's like no getting around that fact so he nods and says, "It was Sam."

     She punches the air. "Fuck yes finally." Then she tilts her head and goes, "I'm most definitely not helping you without question. I need details."

     "I really don't want to talk about it," he says quickly mainly because he doesn't want to say no we're not dating, yes we are hooking up.

     "Too bad," she says. "You come to me in your time of need."

     "You've never even seen Godfather."

     "The point still stands. You're at my mercy."

     And as if the point needs to be made, there's a knock at Calla's door before their father says, "Cal, you awake? I made breakfast."

     Calla's expression is gloating, her eyebrow raised to emphasize the question. Is Sage going to comply or face his parents and their questions?

     He whispers fiercely, "Fine, fine. I'm at your mercy."

     "I'm awake dad," she calls smiling. "I'll be down in a second."

     She gets up, pushing Sage towards her vanity. "So when did this start? Before thanksgiving I'm assuming."

     "After, actually," Sage mumbles. "But it's not a thing."

     "Your neck would beg to differ."

     "It's not an official thing."

     "Huh," she says.

     "What?"

     "Why the delay?"

     "It's complicated," he decides after a moment. That's the closest thing to the truth. He wants Calla to know the whole truth, though. Which he didn't know until this moment. "We're playing that game, I think, where we both pretend we don't actually feel anything."

     Before Calla can remark on it, he adds as an afterthought, "At least, sometimes I think we are. I don't know. I know how I feel but I can convince myself that Sam doesn't feel the same way. And sometimes I can convince myself he does. And the—." He stops, towing dangerously on the line of discussing his sex life with his sister.

     "When it's good," he says finally. "It's really good between us. It feels like something bigger."

     "Get out of your head," Calla says as she leans across Sage, grabbing a makeup palette. "That's where your insecurity lives. Not in reality."

     She uses her nail to scoop some green putty-like product onto the back of her hand and then warms it before dabbing it on Sage's neck. "Tilt your head up," she instructs. "If you feel it, you should say it."

     "It's not that simple," Sage responds.

     "Sure it is. It's actually exactly that simple."

     "Even if he does feel something for me, he could still not want anything more."

     "Do you want more?" she asks her tone thoughtful. Sage doesn't respond, staring over her should as she dabs at his neck. "If it were me in your situation," she says next. "You would be telling me I deserve more."

     "Because you would," he says quickly.

     "And so do you," she snaps back. "It's not any different because you're a guy. You're letting him play touch football with your feelings. That's how shit gets broken."

     Sage startles, jerking away from Calla, so very confused as to when his sister got wise. And he feels like shit, suddenly, too, like he's setting the worse example and he's the only one she's got. If he can't accept better for himself, he should for her, because she's right, he wouldn't want her in this situation.

     "You're right," he mumbles around the shame in his throat.

     Calla startles, too, but composes herself faster, shrugging her shoulders. "Of course I'm right. I'm positively brilliant." She turns towards her vanity and picks up powder and a brush. "This thing is wildly uncooperative. Does it hurt?"

     Sage shakes his head.

     "Huh, it looks like it hurts," she mumbles squinting at his neck as she dusts the brush across.

     Sage nearly asks her if she's never had a hickey before but that is — yeah, no, not really information he wants from his sister. But he's guessing she hasn't.

     She goes back in with the green stuff. "I can't believe you guys did this in the house. And how did no one hear you? Mom and dad are right across the hall."

     "We weren't in my room," he says.

     Calla gasps, kneeing his thigh. "How dare you soil the living room!"

     He decides it's probably better if she thinks that's where it occurred. "There was no sexual intercourse involved in this situation," he says. 

     "Still." She's pat, pat, patting at his neck, packing the product on. "Sam's got on a mouth on him, huh."

     Sage recoils, sickened and so embarrassed he could actually die. "Please don't ever say that again."

     "Come on, we're both adults here," she says.

     "I'm an adult. You're still in high school. I shouldn't even be telling you this."

     "Who else are you going to tell? I'm your best friend."

     "Ruthie's my best friend."

     "You told Ruthie before me? What the hell!"

     "If there was something to tell I'd have told you."

     She pokes him in the neck. "This is something to tell, Sage."

     "I'm not telling you about my sex life, Cal."

     "I would tell you about mine," she snaps.

     "Please don't ever," he says.

     "Why can't we be like the Kardashians?"

     "There are a million reasons why but I'm going to stick with because the last person I want to be like is a Kardashian."

     Calla's pouting and Sage gets that she's actually being kind of serious. "Look," he says finally dropping his head so they've locked eyes. "I want you to tell me about being in love. Every time it happens. I want you to tell it like it's the first time it's ever happened each time, too. Okay? You can be as dramatic and poetic as you want about it."

     "I want that from you, too," she says quietly.

      "This isn't that, Cal," he tells her after a moment.

     "OH my god," she screams stepping back as she throws her hands up. "Don't be a freaking idiot. Please. You two are doing whatever you're doing and I guess it's supposed to be a secret, right? And knowing that you both couldn't manage to keep your hands off each other one night into the break. Like explain that? How is that not love?"

     "Sex isn't love," Sage says meaningful because he needs Calla to get that for her own sake.

     "No, sex isn't love. But wanting to be close to someone? Wanting to be close to them so badly you risk getting caught? Yeah, I don't know, that doesn't sound like just sex to me."

     "I get what you're saying," Sage says. "Like I really do. But I have no reason to believe it's anything more than just sex and every reason to believe it is."

     "You have more than enough reasons to believe it. Just the fact Sam's been here for both breaks is reason enough. You spend more time together than apart. You're choosing not to believe it because you're scared."

     "And so what if I am scared, Calla? That's a perfectly human thing to be."

     Calla shrugs and says in the easiest tone she's taken this whole conversation, "Be scared and do it anyway."

     Sage shakes his head and then he's grinning because his sister is, indeed, his best friend and maybe the wisest person he knows. And— "I love you," he says. "I don't want to be the Kardashians. I want to be us."

❧

     It's a sex thing to think you love someone when you're in the throes of it.

    Because Sam has never loved anybody, other than his family, and he's also never really had good sex before so it must just be a sex thing. He wouldn't know if it wasn't.

     He's lying in bed the next morning thinking about it. Hasn't stopped thinking about Sage since last night. He thought sex would fix this thing, fix the constantly thinking about Sage problem but its actually only made it worse. Now he can't stop thinking about when he'll see him next, when he'll get him alone.

     He realizes he can actually get him alone right now. His rooms just a bathroom away. He gets up, adjusting himself in his sweats before he crosses over to the bathroom. Sage's door is open and he finds his bedroom empty. It's not really late, pushing nine-thirty. Sam didn't think he was sleeping in but maybe they're all super early risers.

     Since he's in here, he decides to do some snooping. It's nearly instantaneous how nervous he gets once he decides to go through Sage's things, suddenly feels like Sage is seconds away from walking in on him. He goes to his nightstand first because that's where the personal items always are and, well, he's not wrong.

     There's a photo of Hudson in a cap and gown squeezing Sage into his chest, tousling his hair. Sage's hair is longer than Sam's ever seen it. And he's so young and lanky, all of his limbs looking too long for his body.

     Sam puts the photo back and thumbs through the rest of the drawer's contents. Chapstick, some matches, a remote control, and shoved in the back is a satin bag. Sam pulls the strings, tilting it towards the window so he can peer inside. It is 1000% a dildo, flesh colored and average sized with a suction cup bottom. There's a clear bottle of lube, too. The whole snooping thing is not helping Sam with the need to see Sage.

     He hears someone in the hall and quickly puts the bag back, shoving the drawer closed. It's Sage's dad. He's talking to Calla. Sam holds his breath, waiting, thinking he should make a run for the bathroom but he doesn't for whatever reason.

     Sage's dad knocks and then opens the door, saying, "Sage, you awake? Oh. Sam."

     It would look a hell of a lot worse if Sage were in his room but since he's not Sam doesn't feel like it's too incriminating. "I was looking for Sage," Sam says. "He's not here."

     "He's not?" Dash asks confused as he steps into the room. Sam shakes his head. "Huh. I didn't see him downstairs."

     "Maybe he's in the studio? Does he paint in the mornings typically?"

     Dash's expression changes, surprised. "You know he paints?"

     "Yeah?" Sam responds shrugging, wondering why Dash is surprised by it.

     Dash shakes his head and then goes, "Yeah, maybe he is in the studio." He doesn't sound entirely convinced. "Well, in any event, breakfast is ready whenever you are."

     Sam nods. "Okay, thanks."

     Dash smiles at Sam before stepping back out, closing the door behind him. Sam lets out a heavy breath, dropping onto Sage's bed. His sheets are still rumpled and Sam's hit with a strong gust of Sage. He lies back, turning his head into Sage's pillow and breathing in.

     So naturally this is when Sage would walk in.

❧

     Sam's in my bed. That's Sage's first and only thought.

     His second thought is that he likes it. He likes Sam in his bed.

❧

     Sage laughs softly and goes, "What are you doing?"

     Sam props himself up on one elbow, rubbing at his jaw, trying to hide his flushing face. "I was looking for you."

     "In my bed?" Sage asks drawing out each word as he walks over to him. He lays down on his side, facing Sam. Sam turns, too, facing him, even though he knows his face is red.

     "Your dad came by. He made breakfast," he says hoping to distract Sage.

     Sage nods slowly. "We should go down."

     "Yeah."

     "Maybe in a minute," he says, eyes moving across Sam's face. He presses his lips together thoughtfully. Sam goes still, waiting. "Last night can't happen again like that," he finally says after a moment. "If we're going to keep this just between us."

     Sam feels like he was just gut punched, the breath knocked out of him. His eyes are hot but he refuses to cry in Sage's bed. He lies back, swallowing against the pain. "Yeah no yeah," he says quickly, nodding vigorously. "Yeah, no, agreed."

     Sage shifts and then Sam can feel the weight of him pressing against his side. His breath is in the crook of his neck. Sam tenses, all anticipation. "We'll need to use more discretion. So no more hickies." He bites at his neck for emphasis and Sam loses all motor function, going slack.

     "This is your idea of discreet?" he manages to ask, despite the way his brain is firing off in all directions, his body turning on like a furnace, nothing but heat.

     "Not at all," Sage says pushing up on his arm so he can kiss Sam. Sam stills for a second, thinking how quickly he went from being hurt to being turned on. Thinking as he kisses Sage back that maybe he's destined to love the thing that destroys him.

     And that thought knocks some sense into Sam. Because he is not in love, definitely not with Sage, who's biggest concern is discretion, apparently.

     He pushes at Sage's chest and he backs off, leaning away from him. "We should go eat," Sam says as an explanation, sitting up. He's hard of course but it's subsiding enough for him to stand.

     Sage sounds confused when he says, "Yeah, okay. I'll meet you down there in a sec."

     Sam nods and doesn't look at him as he leaves, feeling as confused as Sage sounds. The pain of his situation sits in his neck, like it's a thing he needs to speak and until he gives it words it won't stop stinging with every breath.

     He's thinking about what he would say as he goes downstairs.

     Sage. I don't want to keep this thing between us. Which is not to say I want to bring other people into it. I just want people to know, you know?

     Sam doesn't know. Doesn't know why that feels like the most intense thing to say and do. He knows he's not scared of how people would react, so what is it that keeps him from asking for what he wants?

     Because what if it's not what Sage wants. Sage hid the hickey. Sage told him last night was risky and can't happen again. Sam needs to practice some discretion. Sage doesn't want his family to know.

     So yeah, Sam's not saying shit. He'll just live with the aching dying need for more. If Sam's thinking about it, which he is, he's been aching and dying for more his whole life. It's the reason he's here, at NYU, in America. And he's been told all his life this is all you get, never enough, never everything he's asking for.

     No, he gets a portion, instead, a ration of what he wants. And in a few months, that's all the last four years could be, a meager taste of this country and a life in it.

     "Morning Sam!" Nora exclaims when Sam walks in. She's sitting at the island with Dash and there's a platter of pancakes before them. "Help yourself. I didn't cook them." She winks at him.

     "You find Sage?" Dash asks. "He wasn't in the studio."

     Nora shoots Dash a heated look. Dash mumbles, "He knows."

     "He knows?" she whispers back, surprised. It's not really a whisper since Sam's right there but he's fairly certain it's a conversation he's supposed to pretend he can't hear.

    Instead he says, "I know. Was it a huge secret or something?"

     Calla stumbles up behind him and goes, "Was what a huge secret?"

     "That Sage paints," Sam responds with a shrug because it doesn't feel like it should be a huge secret. Not with the way Sage has made a whole Tiktok account for it. Maybe his names not all over it but it can't be a huge secret when you're posting online.

     "We just didn't know you knew is all," Dash says after a tense moment. He's been giving Sam weird looks all morning that Sam can't exactly decipher.

      Calla scoots past Sam, bumping into him as she does. "Pancakes, yus. Do you need a plate?" She holds one up, looking over at him.

     He jumps, shifting his gaze from Dash to Calla. "Please, yes."

     When Sam's finished making a plate, has sufficiently buttered and syrup'd the pancakes in the weirdly quiet kitchen, under Sage's parents attention, he follows Calla out to the sunroom. He's wondering what's holding Sage up, but then decides it doesn't matter and he doesn't care.

     "Christmas Eve feels so lackluster now that I'm old," Calla says as she shovels a pancake into her mouth. Syrup drips down her chin that she daintily wipes with a napkin.

     Sam furrows his brows. "You're not old."

     "I feel very old," she says. "I certainly don't feel young."

     "Wait till you get into your twenties," Sam says with a groan, unsure if it's from the pancakes or the acknowledgement that he's in his twenties. "You'll feel like you're old because you are old and that you should have everything figured out even though you don't. Which'll only make you feel worse."

     "Have what figured out?" she asks.

     "I don't know," Sam shrugs, "Life. School. Work. Life."

     "Which is the hardest?"

     "Life. Always life."

     "Maybe," Calla says poising her tongue on her upper lip as she points her fork at Sam. "Maybe you're just overthinking it."

     "You're the one lamenting being too old for Christmas."

     "Well old is a matter of relativity. I'm too old for this holiday, but not too old for life. Neither are you."

     Sam says, "Eh, I think it's more a matter of time. When I say I'm too old, what I'm really saying is I'm stressed that there's not enough time."

     "But you have an abundance of time. You have all the time you have until you run out of it, ya know?"

     "I guess you're right," he says nodding. "It's just that you make a timeline and you think your life's going to follow it. And when it doesn't, it starts to feel like you're running out of time and getting too old too fast."

     "You should ditch the timeline for an outline instead. Outlines are great because you move things all around. There's nothing permanent about an outline," she says like it's that simple, just a matter of rewiring your expectations.

     Whatever Sam's going to say next stalls inside him as Sage walks out into the sunroom. He'd been anxious about what Sage was doing upstairs, what was delaying him, but now that he was here, Sam felt like he needed to be anywhere else.

     That feeling in his throat thickens and he stands, picking up his half eaten plate.

     "Where ya going?" Calla asks, her eyes fixated on his food. He had one pancake, which constitutes nothing. Which makes the lie he's about to tell sound pathetic.

     He tells it anyway. "I'm full." He sidesteps Sage as he walks over. "I'm gonna shower."

     He leaves faster than he should, like he's fleeing a crime scene, which he might be. Sage and him are a car crash on a tape loop. They're a front end collision with airbag deployment, no seatbelts, ejecting from their cars, passing each other with a wave like they haven't just killed each other.

❧

     Sage thought he'd gotten things right. Now he's not so sure. Because Sam is definitely jumpy and definitely avoiding him.

     He doesn't come back downstairs after his abrupt departure at breakfast. It's Christmas Eve so his parents are both working on dinner. They do the Feast of the Seven Fishes every year. Usually their aunts and sometimes their grandparents make it out but they're keeping it small this year, mainly because his parents are flying out the day after Christmas.

     He waits for Sam in the living room, flipping through the channels and glancing at the doorway. After a while, he realizes he's not coming back, at least not anytime soon, and goes upstairs to change into something more suitable for dinner. He doesn't shower because he doesn't want to risk messing up Calla's work on his neck, and anyway, their Christmas Eve dinner isn't a fancy thing.

     He passes Sam's room and the door's closed. He hesitates, wanting to knock, wanting to see what he's doing but he doesn't. He decides to give Sam the space he's clearly trying to take, returning to the living room.

     It's a few hours of scrolling and failing to get into literally any movie before Sam surfaces. He's dressed casually in jeans and an off-white sweater, slightly oversized and dipping low on his chest. Sage only glimpses him as he passes the living room, going for the kitchen.

     Which is strange. He waits, wondering if Sam's getting a drink before he joins him. But he never surfaces. He stays in the kitchen with his parents. Sage wants to question it, wants to walk in there and find out what could possibly be more entertaining than hanging out with him. He's also worried his parents will provide some incriminating information.

     Sage enacts some self control, calls on the last of his self preservation, and stays put. Trying and failing to reason with himself that Sam's not being weird, that maybe he just wants to get to know his parents, and they don't need to be under each other the whole break (though he certainly wouldn't mind.) He doesn't move from the couch all afternoon. Eventually Calla joins him and if she finds it odd that Sam's not there, she doesn't say so.

     It's not until dinner that Sage sees Sam and by then Sam's proper drunk and in need of food, not Sage questioning him on why he spent the day with his parents. Not that it seems like Sam's even going to provide an explanation. He's the first to make a plate and leave the kitchen.

     Sage is last to leave, waiting out the room till it's just him and his dad. As he passes his father to get to the frutti di mare, he says, "You got him wasted."

     "I did nothing of the sort," his father responds quickly, sounding guilty. There's a crash in the dining room and his mother distinctly shouting watch out Sam! His father quickly rectifies, "He is of age and it is a holiday."

     Sage is fuming. This isn't how he saw the break going, if he's being honest with himself. But if he's also being honest with himself, he's not sure what he expected. It was probably a bad idea bringing Sam there.

    When he gets back to the dining room, Sage deliberately takes the seat beside Sam, reaching for some garlic bread. He drops it on top of his plate of food, hissing, "Eat."

     Does it personally offend him that Sam got drunk or does it personally offend him that Sam got drunk without him?

     "You eat," Sam mutters back and Sage can hear the roll of his eyes in it.

     So he's definitely fucked up but he doesn't understand how. The hickey was risky but he'd hidden it. His parents didn't know a thing. Their secret was safe. So why was Sam mad at him? The hot/cold of it pisses him off.

     Sam's attitude persists through dinner. He doesn't direct conversation towards Sage at all. Sage tries, at first, to engage with him but everything he says gets lost. Sam's mastered a drunk art of taking Sage's words and transitioning them into a conversation with someone else.

     He does it with no malice either, just a soft slur that his parents and Calla seem to write off as Sam being a little drunk. Sage sees right through that shit. And if Sam gets to be a drunk dick all night, well then so does Sage.

❧

     Sam's a little drunk. It's Christmas Eve, so he thinks it's okay. Even though it's not his holiday to celebrate he's celebrating it, anyway. And it's okay because everyone is a little drunk, except Calla.

     Okay, actually, he's fairly certain he's a lotta drunk and that everyone else is like borderline in comparison. Except for Sage who seemed to start matching him drink for drink after the second round of food.

     The Feast of Seven Fishes, as it turns out, is an endless round of seafood. A good thing because eating is the only thing keeping Sam from teetering over the edge into sloppy. When he compliments Sage's dad on the food during the fourth? fifth? round and everyone laughs, he remembers that he said the same thing during the second and third rounds, too.

     Being drunk turns out to be exactly what he needs, though. Sage is sitting beside him, smelling and feeling like Sage. Sage has sat beside him and behind him and just generally near him for four years and Sam still hasn't figured out how to not be bothered by it. Except alcohol. Yep, that is doing the trick.

     Enough so that he sort of forgets he's mad at Sage (he doesn't even really remember when he started being mad at him) and says something nice like want me to refill that for you? as he stands. It breaks the ice he froze over them and then they're both laughing and telling his parents stories of all the times they were absolute assholes to each other.

     "So then," Sam's saying and he hasn't mastered intoxicated volume control. He's swinging his arm at Sage, slapping him in the shoulder and the chest while he laughs. There's tears in Dash's eyes and Nora's gasping at the ceiling, trying to catch her breath. "So then my backpack tears completely in half."

     "I didn't know that," Sage says between his laughter. "You never told me that."

     "Yeah because I was absolutely fuming. The damn elevator took the binding off one of my texts. I lost half the book."

     "Oh that's good, that's great," Nora says blotting under her eyes with her knuckles. "You two are truly nuts."

     Sam would like to agree. He is crazy. Crazy because of Sage and maybe for him, too. Can feel that deeply, even while drunk. Maybe the alcohol is actually emphasizing it because he's leaning into Sage's shoulder and his brain keeps trying to remind him of something. Something, wait, right, it's discretion. That's the thing. Fuck.

     He shoots forward and it's obvious. Nora startles, looking at him with concern. He smiles weakly and says, "I don't think I'm used to being this full." It's not actually a lie. Sam hasn't eaten this much since he was back home. Living on a college budget has its limits. He's certainly not out splurging on clams and octopus every weekend.

     "The Feast of Seven Fishes should really keep you full for seven days," Calla says as she stands, rubbing the swell of her belly through her sweater. "The best thing to do is give in to the food coma."

     "It is getting late," Nora says. "I should get this food wrapped up."

     "Let me help," Sam says springing to his feet and knocking into the table so that an empty glass falls over.

     Dash reaches over, righting it with a laugh. "Why don't you head to bed? The two of you." He shoots a withering look at Sage who's actually dozing in his seat. 

     "This meal was amazing," Sam reiterates for maybe the tenth time as he steps behind his chair and pushes it under the table.

     "Help Sage to his room, Sam," Nora says as she loads her arms with plates. "He's about to knock out at the table."

     Keeping discretion in mind and only discretion, Sam reaches for Sage's forearm and pulls him to his feet. He's unsteady at first, catching his foot on the leg chair and stumbling towards Sam. Sam puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

     "You good?" he asks with a soft laugh. He never gets to see Sage drunk and of course he's too drunk to freaking appreciate it.

     Sage grins at Sam, all teeth and that hurts. Sam goes still, staring at him, at his smile and wanting so badly to kiss him but none of his family has left the room and discretion. He is supposed to be practicing it.

     Calla, savior that she is, loops an arm through Sage's and says, "I've got him. You go ahead Sam."

     Sam knows when to take his leave. He's too drunk to see it now and he probably won't remember tomorrow but the look everyone's giving him is very telling. Because apparently you can't hide shit when you're drunk, which is something you don't ever realize when you're drunk.

     He goes upstairs thinking he's done a great job of keeping Sage at a distance and giving nothing away at dinner. He's preening really, patting himself on the back for a job well done.

     He gets to his room and tosses his sweater into a chair by his bed. He has to futz with his jeans a bit before he gets them off and tosses them, too. It's warm in his room and he can hear the soft blow of the heat coming through the vents. The alcohol isn't helping. He's having a heat stroke.

     Sam goes to the bathroom, doesn't bother turning the lights on or even with his briefs as he steps into the shower stall and flips on the cold water. It hits him in the face, ice cold and shocking. He blinks, rubbing his eyes and then pushing his wet hair off his forehead as he leans away from the stream, letting it hit his chest.

     He didn't bother with the doors, either, but that was on purpose.

     So when Sage pops up in the doorway, Sam welcomes it, bathing in his gaze. He's staring at Sam with a look of mild disbelief. Sam turns to face him completely, leaning back against the wall. The water is spraying in front of him, blurring Sage. Drenched in cold water but somehow still on fire, Sam makes a slow show of adjusting himself in his briefs. They're soaking wet and clinging to him, hiding nothing.

     Sage crosses the bathroom in a few long steps, not stopping till he's in the water too, clutching Sam's face so he can tip it back and kiss him. Sam reaches up, hanging onto his wrists, as he opens his mouth, making the softest of sounds as Sage licks into his mouth.

     His brain has stopped harping on discretion. This is what he's needed all day. This is the salve for his wounds, wounds inflicted by Sage that can licked by him, too, apparently. Because even if everything else is true, and Sam's only ever going to be Sage's secret, he knows that this is true, too. They work like this, with Sage's knee between his legs and Sam grinding down on it, wheezing on his breath, astonishingly sensitive.

     Sam tilts his head, shifting his mouth off of Sage's. "Would you?" he asks and the question fades, interrupted as Sage goes, "Anything."

     "Anything?" Sam pulls away completely so he can look him in the eyes.

     Sage is flushed, his lips wet and rosy. "Yeah," he says finally. "Anything."

     "Would you fuck me?" he asks and his voice is small, nervous.

     Sage bites his bottom lip, thoughtful and then goes, "Yes."

     That is literally all Sam needs to hear before he's moving back in, tugging Sage towards him. Sage presses a palm against the side of his ribs, keeping him only far enough where he can't kiss him. "But," he starts to say and Sam stills, feeling the cold water now, shivering under it. He can hear Sage's next words before he says them. But not here. Not where my family can catch us.

     Sam wonders if he's not good enough for Sage.

     "Not like this. Not when we've been drinking."

     "Oh," Sam says. The spike and drop of his adrenaline, of his fear of being rejected for who he is, nauseates him. Maybe the alcohol is assisting with that, too. "That makes sense."

     "Its not how I would want to," Sage says quickly, fumbling with his words. "Not the first time."

     Sam nods, settling back against the wall. "That makes sense," he repeats again because he's kind of at a loss for words. Sage does that to him. He looks at him, rakes his eyes down his body. Sage is soaking wet, too, but still in the clothes he wore to dinner. His over-sized button up is sticking to his skin. But he's beautiful. Sam can't not think it.

     Sage reaches over, turning the water off. "We can still...you know. Just not that. I'd like to get out of these wet clothes, though, first, maybe."

     "Well, I can help with that," Sam says grabbing a handful of his shirt and tugging him towards him and then back. He thinks he's going to unbutton it deftly, all slow and sexy, but it takes him entirely too long to get the first button and Sage starts laughing at him.

     "Don't laugh," he says pouting. "Don't laugh at me."

     "I'm not, I'm not," he says but he totally is. Sam glares at him before fisting both sides of the shirt where it's open at his neck and tearing it open.

     Sage yelps as the buttons ricochet off the walls of the shower stall. "Oh come on, that wasn't very nice." He tries to frown at Sam but it doesn't work because he still can't stop laughing.

     "Keep laughing at me Sage!"

     So he does, which wasn't what Sam was actually asking of him. He laughs the whole time Sam undresses him. Laughs the whole time he finishes undressing Sam. Doesn't stop laughing until he finds something better to do with his mouth.

❧

     It's late and Sage is in his bed. Sam's in it, too. It just seemed like the natural progression of things from the bathroom. They'd stumbled there, still drunk on alcohol and newly drunk on each other. Sage feels good about his choices, even as Sam crawls over him, knee digging into his thigh, as he mumbles, "I like this side."

     They're both still naked and Sam's skin is a hot brush stroking across him. "Oh, wait, no, sorry, this isn't the right side." Sam sprawls across him again, his dick pressing into Sage's hip, his tongue catching his nipple as he army crawls across him.

     "I'm gonna hurt you," Sage mumbles with nothing but affection in his tone. Sam is drunk and he's being playful and Sage wants to remember this night for the entirety of his life.

     "Hm, I don't think this is the right side, either," Sam mumbles.

     Sage throws his arm across his chest, keeping him planted beside him, and says, "That literally is the right side."

      "No, wait, I know," Sam says pushing his arm away. He rolls onto Sage, knocking the breath out of him with a groan. He shimmies until Sage widens his stance and Sam can lie on top of him with his legs between Sage's.

     "Yep, this is the spot," he says dropping his head on Sage's chest. It takes less than a minute for his breathing to quiet.

     "Oh no you don't," Sage says wrapping his arms around him before he rolls them. Sam huffs and Sage braces for retaliation but it never comes. Sam's asleep again, he thinks. "We can't sleep like this," he tells him.

     His response is sluggish. "Sure we can."

     "This can't be comfortable."

     "It really is."

     "I'll suffocate you," Sage says finally because he's starting to fall asleep now, too.

     Sam kisses under his chin and then says, "Sage, respectfully, shut up and suffocate me."