Author's note: I'm back to writing Glee which I haven't done in forever! But I was kind of boerd so I wrote this is one night, it is a little bit manic and hard to follow but tell me what you think This is a Sam/Artie friendship story inspired by CheekyBrunette.
When Sam said he wanted to be close to Artie, you know as close as their girlfriends were Artie didn't think much on it.
Okay so he laughed for a long hard while (and told Kurt, who made some witty one-liners about Sam bleaching his hair that Artie didn't quite get.) But beyond that Artie hadn't thought of it as a genuine request of friendship because… well people didn't just ASK to be friends (next year Artie was proved wrong yet again when a smiling foreign exchange student asked him, very sweetly if he wanted to be friends. Artie politely handed him off to Sam; as they seemed to be likeminded.)
Artie doubted anything would have come from it hadn't Sam awkwardly echoed the same sentiment to Santana who had taken it seriously. At some point earily in the week she had appeared to have made a vow to be a better girlfriend and set things in motion.
Now as far as Artie knew Sam and Santana were dating without the actual 'dating' part, so it was easy to forget they were together. But now there was double dating, which was an even odder concept to Artie than the non-dating they were doing.
Artie though about the last time Artie had gone on a date with Santana and Brittney (and shuddered violently at the memory) and decided Breadsticks would be out. Sure, Sam was definitely a better person than Puck and probably WOULDN'T stick him with the check. Still better safe than sorry…
That's how the four of them ended up crammed on Artie's couch for a movie date night. Apparently the first of many…
"So what kind of movie are we watching?" Britney asked excitedly bouncing on her feet, Santana shuffled behind her and handed him a cheese platter, scowling. "Santana?" Artie said in surprise as Santana dumped the cheese platter in his lap, "where is Sam?"
"Shouldn't YOU know- you are the host here" she rolled her eyes and gave him 'the look.' Artie sighed and pulled out his phone and stared at the numbers… this would work better if he knew Sam's number. "Satan- I mean Santana, I need to borrow you're phone" she raised an eyebrow at him and chucked her phone "Ergh I'm getting poorer every second I stand here" she told Britney "your boyfriend doesn't even have a phone."
"Then who have I've been calling?" Britney asked in mild concern "have I been texting a ghost all this time? I didn't know ghosts could move things!"
"They can't" Santana gave her a sharp grin "nooo that sound more like a poltergeist. It explains all the love poems- they ARE scary." Britney lets out a small 'epp' and grabs hold of Santana's arm.
"You are a horrible person" Artie shook his head and texted Sam his address. Santana scoffed "hey I brought a cheese platter- did anyone ELSE bring a cheese platter?"
"I didn't bring a cheese platter" Britney said sadly "I used all the cheese in the house to make Mr Tubbington a cheese cage… but he ate it." Santana patted her on the arm in what might be sympathy and Artie made a mental note to call Mr Pierce and tell him that he may have to pick up a Mr Tubbington the twelfth.
There was a knock on the door and the girls looked at Artie expectedly. "Oh I'll get it" he rolled his eyes "It's not like it isn't more difficult for me or anything," he gestured to his chair and Santana snorted. "MORE difficult? You sit on your lazy ass all day wheels, EVERYTHING is easier for you."
"There are SO many things wrong with that sentence" Artie shook his head, wheeling off to the front door.
Sam beamed at him when he opened the door; "thanks for sending me the right directions- Santana sent me right across town. Oh look! I brought soda… I had a cheese platter too but it went mysteriously missing from my kitchen table…"
"Reeeeally?" Artie laughed and Sam cocked his head before following behind him. "Sam" Santana called to him in surprise, her voice dropped a couple octaves as she exclaimed, "you… made it." Gee… even when Santana was trying to be a good girlfriend, she was still a pretty shitty girlfriend.
Brittney was on Artie's couch (a mismatched blend of pattern and colour that left no room for doubt that Artie had INHERITED his fashion blindness.) She patted the space next to her, "come cuddle Artie" she gave him a big beautiful smile and he matched it with a grin of his own. "In a second Britt- I need to put the DVD in" he turned to Sam "can you grab some cups from the kitchen?"
Sam shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other and scratched his head "um- where IS the kitchen?" Artie let out a surprised laugh "sorry bout that dude, forgot you've never been here" he turned to Brittney and waited for her to give him eye contact so he could be sure she was paying attention. "Sweetie- can you start opening the chips and stuff while I show Sam to the kitchen?"
"I got it Abrams" Santana told him and picked up a bag of Doritos and opened them as if to demonstrate. "Go hang with Sam" she shooed them off and threw a Dorito playfully at Britney. Artie wondered- not for the first time- if Santana forgot just WHO she was supposed to be dating. Artie tucked the thought away under do-not-think-about but made sure to give his girlfriend a long purposeful goodbye kiss before he left with Sam.
Sam didn't kiss Santana goodbye, or hello for that matter which put their horrendous displays of PDA at school in a very different light.
Sam brightened as soon as they were out of the lounge room and bounced around with a similar kind of enthusiasm that he only saw in Britney in her more… single minded moments. "So what movie are we watching?"
Artie shot him a grin "oh YOU'LL love it" he put special thought into what movie they could watch that Sam would enjoy that would be at the same time not be Avatar. He went blank for a long time but finally found the perfect movie in a pile of his sister's old movies.
Speaking of little sisters…
Artie's little sister Rebecca was sitting at the kitchen table and glowered at them. "I thought you were having your little date in the lounge room Artie" she pursed her lips and looked Sam up and down, "still have a thing for athletic blondes I see?"
"You AWAY Becca!" He glared and picked up some peanuts from the bowl on the counter and threw them at her. "Ahh! Okay fine! Now I have salt in my hair!" she stormed off, purposefully slamming doors as she went.
"She ah seems nice," Sam bit his lip to hold in a laugh and Artie shot him a wiry smile. "She's in middle school now so she hates everything- don't take it personally," Sam laughed loudly, "Okay I wont then."
Artie could never quite reach the cups in the cabinet, they were supposed to be in a lower cabinet but his dad had done in his back and everything had been moved up frustratingly high again. His pulled open the cabinet door okay, but Becca had predictably pushed all the cups back in her incredibly passive aggressive way of inciting revenge on him for whatever he had done to her this week.
Sam came up behind him and grabbed the cups placing them in Artie's hand almost automatically. It was only when the cups were in Artie's hand and Artie had turned around with words of half embarrassed 'thanks' on his lips that he realised Sam had frozen. His hand was still extended and his eyes were blown wide, Artie met Sam's gaze and that broke the moment.
"I'm sorry Artie I didn't even think-" he started to blabber and Artie was genuinely confused, talking to Sam was kind of like talking to Finn. It took a lot of guesswork from both sides to understand what the other was trying to convey.
"Cause you're always saying you hate it when people treat you like you can't do stuff without ever consider how capable you can be- which I totally get I mean-"
On second thought talking to Sam was nothing like talking to Finn, who was thoughtless and forgot to listen half the time and talk over you the other half of the time.
It was like seeing Sam as an individual for the first time. Not as Finn's friend, Santana's boyfriend, glee club member or even fellow footballer. Sam was just Sam.
"Sam" Artie said and Sam cut himself off and looked at Artie with wide eyes, Artie crinkled his eyes when he smiled and it's like he had invented a whole new smile just for Sam. "Thanks" before he pushed off and was out the door leaving Sam to follow after him.
******GLEE******
Artie decided to clock in some bro time with Kurt because Sam's offer of friendship had got him thinking about his existing friendships or whatever. Or maybe he just needed to talk to a guy friend and he's rather cut off his eyelids than get into a serious talk about feelings with Finn or Puck.
Kurt was currently kind of a package deal with Blaine now, who of course showed up; Artie didn't really mind much one way or the other. (Well okay he minded a little but not the way Mercedes and Tina minded.) So he tagged along and they went to this small coffee shop Artie had never seen.
"So you guys drink a lot of coffee huh?" Artie asked well naturedly as he watched Kurt daintily sip on the blackest coffee he'd ever laid eyes on. Kurt patted Blaine's hand and he grinned brightly at him (Blaine had a tendency to grin brightly at everything) and took a gulp of his latte, eyeing Artie expectantly. Everyone had coffee but him.
Artie was over come with the eagre to drink something (cause he caved easily to peer pressure) and in a moment of sheerly lunacy tried to drink his sesame seed and pumpkin muffin and ended up smashing it to his face.
Kurt held up a Dalton hanky (strangely with the initials B.A. in the corner) and waved it in his face with a great big smile "you know I really have missed you Artie." Artie took the hanky with over compensated swagger and sent him a cocky grin "of course you do- who wouldn't miss all this" he gestured at himself. He didn't even mind when Blaine couldn't stifle the laugh- and Artie shot him a rye smile so he knew he hadn't been offended (Blaine seemed like the type who would worry if he offended someone.)
"You still have some on your top lip" Blaine gestured and Artie dabbed at his lip in the daintiest way possible (like he'd seen Rachel do under her eyes when she'd pretend to cry.) "Why thank you," he told him politely and then turned to Kurt "so can you give me your opinion now" he asked curtly. Cause while small talk, public humiliation and awesome sesame seed and pumpkin muffins were great and all, that's so not what he was here for.
"Do you want to repeat that" Kurt shot him a sly smirk and Artie rolled his eyes "I most certainly would not- you know I'd say I value your opinion but I fear your head will grow so large it will topple you over."
"Yes and then perhaps I'll need a wheelchair if I can not support the weight on my ginormous head" he snapped back in a similar playful manner.
Artie took the time to engage in some casual observation and watched Blaine's face. The boy obviously wasn't used to a snarky, morbid Kurt- which surprised Artie in only that he didn't know there WERE other facets to Kurt's personality. He always assumed Kurt would find someone he wanted to be genuine with, without all the venom and hate and the bitchiness.
He didn't think it would be with a gay dude, to be honest.
Artie rationalised that he wasn't been homophobic mostly because he and Kurt had an agreement that Artie could never be considered homophobic as long as he didn't make a fuss about any off colour cripple jokes Kurt might accidently (or not so accidently) say.
It was a system that worked for the most part because Kurt and Artie both loved dark humour.
Back when it had just been Artie and Kurt against the world (meaning they were the only two boys in their friendship group) they used to stay up late and watch Heathers. Theorising all the ways they could kill all the popular kids (Britney had always died by telling her a riddle which would fry her brain- after getting to know her… he still stands by that decision.)
"Okay, okay let's think about this logically" Kurt tapped his chin thoughtfully "Santana's a giant lesbian." He picked up the pepper and waved it around imitating Santana in a high (well… higher) voice "I'm Santana and I'm from Lima Heights Adjacent so you better back the fuck up."
Artie snorted and Blaine furrowed his brow picking up the lemon juice as some on representation of Sam and waved it around "wait let's not be so hasty she had a boyfriend" he waved the lemon juice around a bit more for emphasis. "She could be bisexual" he sat the lemon juice next to the pepper and Artie shrugged "Kurt doesn't believe in bisexually but I'm much more open to the idea."
"Of course you are- since your girlfriend CLAIMS to be one" Kurt rolls his eyes and makes the saltshaker do a surprisingly sexy dance since it was a saltshaker. "Are you holding out for a threesome?" Kurt wiggles his eyebrows in a way so horrifying Artie can't bare to look at him "oh look at you" Blaine nudges the older boy "got some pamphlets and now you know everything."
Kurt flushes and Artie doesn't quite get what's happening (something of a frustrating reassurance recently, everyone has these private jokes and private seemed to mean exclude Artie from the conversation and make him uncomfortable.) He could at least guess here, Kurt had called him up mortified that Blaine had overstepped some kind of boundary about one friend telling another friend's dad that he's not properly educated about sex.
"A threesome really Kurt? And what am I doing in this scenario exactly? I'm so… limited" he buried his head in his hands "God no wonder she's cheating on me! I would cheat on me!"
"So in this scenario I assume that you are sleeping with a fully functioning version of yourself that also happens to be an ass?" Kurt asked lightly and Artie let out a strangled laugh "you give me to much credit Kurt- regular me is an ass too."
Artie picked up the candy bar he'd been saving to comfort him in his peak moment of angst in this conversation, and he twirled in deftly between his fingertips. "So If Brittney's salt and Santana's pepper I think it's pretty clear" he look at his hands "I mean chocolate doesn't go with salt."
He lets out a weak laugh and Blaine grabs his hand in a shocking display of intimacy from someone he didn't know very well and gave his hand a squeeze. "I wouldn't think to hard about it, but if it does go south- well chocolate might not go with salt, it does go with almost anything else."
Kurt steals the candy bar and takes a big bite "yeah it's kind of the slut of the food world… hey! Maybe Brittney should be chocolate."
Blaine hits Kurt so Artie doesn't have to and Artie just smiles, cause it just feels right to.
******GLEE******
Artie doesn't know how to approach Sam at school. They were friends through association… kind of, back when Finn was feeling lonely and was picking up friends like Puck picks up STDS. But it's different now, Finn's got a supposedly secret thing going with Quinn and is preoccupied trying to pick out a baby name that ends in 'inn' for when he inevitably knocks her up again. Or so Artie imagined.
Artie shouldn't have worried because Sam sits down next to him at lunch without any second thought. Depressingly the first thing that pops into his head was how last year he used to sit with his friends and this year he sometimes sits with his girlfriend when she's not busy or Finn when he's not busy. Mostly he ends up sitting alone.
Sam has a perfectly made sandwich made of wonder bread and peanut butter that Artie just knows he's never going to eat (and Artie puts in a mental note that when he feels like he and Sam are actually friends they will be having words about his non-existent diet.) Sam picks at the crusts and gives Artie a big dopey smile that Artie is finding more and more endearing, "hey Artie- how was math? Still struggling with tutoring Puck?"
Oh no. Were Sam and Artie friends and Artie just hadn't noticed? Did Sam think he was in the world's most one sided friendship ever? Okay, okay don't panic. You can fix this…
Artie feigns casualness and took a sit of his OJ, only then Sam takes this as a sign to keep talking and Sam's telling him this really funny story about having to read out loud in English and not getting in two sentences out before his teacher snaps at him rather violently that it's 'ancient mythic Gods' not 'accent mythic dogs.'
Artie smiles and oh great now he had OJ all down the front of his shirt and this is why he shouldn't be aloud in public with any kind of food or drink ever.
Sam grabs his gear from his locker and meets Artie in the bathroom on the second floor. The bathroom Artie had to wheel past two cheerleaders, one unsympathetic TA and of course Miss Sylvester (because that's just his luck.)
Sam's nice enough to only make one joke about not making in easy and doing the bullies' job for them. And Artie refrains the eagre to flick him with water. It was a little sad that Artie still brought an extra shirt to school every day due to years of multiple slushings (that had only become marginally better since he had become an honorary jock.)
"Does this happen to you often?" Sam laughed and Artie sighed and nodded, because foot had never been his friend, much like steep hills and his little sister- life's little challenges…
Sam clasps his shoulder, and Artie doesn't mind when Sam grabs his handles so he can push him forwards.
"So- did you like the movie we saw?" Artie struggled for a topic; he seemed to have hit a good topic because Sam practically resinates happiness. "YES" he said excitedly "I mean at first I thought it might be lame because it was about fairies but it was just like Avatar!"
Artie had a feeling both Sam and Britney would find appreciate his sister's old copy of Ferngully. And as a bonus Santana had hated it with every fibre of her being, which just made Artie feel all warm inside.
The bell rung and Sam groaned, "ergh- I guess that means more English." Artie furrowed his brow "dude weren't you just IN English?" Sam blushed and scratched his head "yeah I'm dyslexic… so I have remedial English instead of having the option to do a another language."
"So you do another English class instead of like Spanish or French?" Artie winced and Sam looked down at his shoes and looked like he was going to sink into the floor. "Well… I mean English isn't my best subject… but I- I mean I-"
Sam shook his head "no- I mean you don't have to I'm fine. Look I've gotta go…"
Sam walked away and Artie wasn't sure what to do to fix whatever just happened.
******GLEE******
Sam and Santana are still together but only just. Especially after Santana created a song dedicated to his mouth (and not in a good way) and Sam overheard her gloating to Brittney that it was the best heterosexual song ever which left him more than a little concerned.
Artie kept looking at him like he was on the verge of telling him something important, but Sam was trying not to push. Trying very, very hard.
Being friends with Artie was so different, and exactly what he had meant when he told him he wanted to be closer. It wasn't like being friends with Finn- who Sam was pretty sure only made friends when it was convenient or would get him something.
And being friends with Quinn was like… okay he was never friends with Quinn, she liked him right up until the time he opened his mouth.
He had wanted to be Artie's friend cause of the high probability they'd like the same stuff and Artie wouldn't make fun of him as long as he knew Sam was sensitive about getting teased. Artie kind of exceeded expectations though; Artie introduced him to everything he didn't know he liked.
Sam had never been huge on video games but apparently that just meant he hadn't been playing them right. And movies! God movies! Sam had only been scratching the surface on how awesome movies could be and now he had GENRES to obsess over rather than singular movies.
Sam opened his locker and a folded up piece of paper fell out, Sam smiled and picked it up.
Sam,
I was thinking of rhymes for our original songs! Get this:
Love/Glove/above/dove/shove etc (yes Sam, I did make these up on the fly)
Don't think it can work? Then you are about to be school with my mad rhymes, check it:
Girl you are my true love,
We fit together like a hand in a glove,
It seems like you were sent from above,
Something, something dove and shove.
This is clearly a work in progress- you think up some more rhymes are get back to me yo.
-Artie
Artie had been leaving him notes in his locker for a week now, demanding that he return them in writing under pain of getting the crappy x-box controller. Sam hadn't realised at first at what Artie was trying to do (because okay- maybe he did take a long time to catch on.)
He started out only writing a sentence or two- but slowly he responses started becoming longer and he was spending more and more time trying to craft them. The spelling was awful, punctuation terrible and sometime there were entire sentences that made absolutely no sense. But Sam was trying harder than he ever had to be better, because Artie wanted him to be.
Sam liked having friends, being Glee club was almost like having friends. But having someone you could actually talk to; someone who wanted to hang out with you and who wanted t have you around. Well it made it easy to ignore the people that didn't want him around.
He probably needed to talk to Santana… but first he had a letter to write.
******GLEE******
They compete and win Regionals and Artie feels like he's metaphorically walking on air (because there were many gaping loop holes if he had meant that literally.) He was only a little put out that someone had to loose (and by that he meant Kurt and Blaine not Miss Sylvester, never Miss Sylvester.)
Sam has all but broken up with Santana in everyway but actually voicing it but the four of them still celebrate with movie night anyway. They let Santana pick and she is gracious enough to pick a sci-fi classic (the thing) as apposed to… well anything else.
Artie and Brittney sit in the middle of the couch, each flanked by a friend they can whisper to. Artie pretends it doesn't hurt to see the way Santana and Brittney whisper and the way Santana puts her hand high on Brittney's leg and Brittney doesn't push her away. Artie wonders when he's going to have to break up with her.
When it's going to become too painful to ignore anymore.
He doesn't want t. It's going to hurt both of them and she probably going to get together with Santana straight away and it going to be like Tina all over again.
Sam puts his hand on Artie's shoulder but it's not like there are words for this kind of situation and even if there were, it's not like Sam would know them.
Artie feels a little better knowing Sam is there- they're in the same boat sort of, which is why Artie probably feels so close to him so quickly. Their first girlfriends cheated on them and their second ones… the one's that took their virginities respectively probably lost theirs to each other.
Sam doesn't love Santana, so he's going to come out of this better in this than Artie. Artie can still see the lines of hurt on his face, so just cause it doesn't hurt as much- doesn't mean it doesn't hurt at all.
Artie's head isn't in the movie and Santana is in a charitable enough mood to challenge him to a friendly game of Chinese checkers- which she is apparently the bomb at.
Brittney is laid out on the couch with a sleepy smile on her lips and sipping on a drink too fruity and too alcoholic for Artie to think about it. She isn't taking sides, but then again she never does. If there were a way for everyone to win she'd probably take it.
Sam is sipping a beer and throwing popcorn into Artie's hair when he thinks Artie isn't looking. Artie is planning his revenge and it won't be just be him being exiled to the crappy x-box controller. No it'll be something horrible. Like he'll draw moustaches on Sam's Justin Beiber posters that Sam claims he doesn't own.
Yes, revenge will be sweet.
Santana clears her throat and raised her eyebrow. She gestures at the board and chuckled when his eyebrow furrow, "So wheels what's it going to be? You gonna make a move?"
Artie looked over at Brittney and then Sam and then back at Santana. He looks her dead in the eyes, because it's not worth anything if he can't look her in the eye."
"No" he said finally "I think I'm just gonna wait."