Sam's POV
I told myself that we were done. That the last time had actually been The Last Time, as in capital letters, as in proper noun. When I'd woken up next to you, your back warm against my chest, your hair tickling my nose, I made a promise to never let it happen again. To never let you in my bed, my head or my heart even once more. But funny thing, promises, because when it comes to you I can't seem to keep them. Can't, won't, it's all the same anymore, because no matter what I said, no matter what I thought, it doesn't change the fact that you're back.
You lift your head from the pillows, all of them piled beneath that head of dusky blond hair that I instinctively want to run my fingers through, and your thin lips form a smile that reaches into your eyes and crinkles their corners. We haven't spoken since you showed up in my motel room, the headlights of a passing car casting the shadows of your wings across the walls. We've gone beyond the point of exchanging such trivial things as words. We've said it all, seen it all, thought it all, in regards to one another. I can't say I missed you because I didn't. You can't say why you're back because you don't know. But you're here, and maybe that means you'll stay. Maybe that means we've no need for The Last, Last Time.
Your hand reaches toward my face, the backs of your fingers brushing the two day stubble of my cheek, and I turn just enough to lay kisses on your fingertips. They're soft, without the callouses from long drives and robbing graves that adorn my own. I remember the first time those fingers touched me, the first time they wrapped around the back of my neck and pulled me down so our faces were level, and how desperately I coveted your touch thereafter. I remember the first time your hands curled under the hem of my shirt and held tightly to the bare skin of my waist and how I realized how cold I must have felt against the warmth of your palms.
You pull away and turn your back to me, giving me just long enough to frown before leaning against me. Despite the layers of clothing I can feel you as if there were none. The contours of your back fit perfectly against my chest. When you started speaking, your words hardly registered. We have long since fallen into comfortable silence, communicating through hazy expressions, and I hate to say I'd forgotten the sound of your voice.
"There's nothing I hate more than goodbyes," you repeated per my request and my arms wrapped tightly around your chest without so much as a thought. Before I could process what you had said, I knew I wouldn't let you go. Not again.
"Then stop saying them." I meant to say don't leave me, that I need you, that the sun rises dimmer in a world without you in it. But with my face buried in your hair, how could you tell?
You say my name with the weight of the universe dangling from that single syllable, from those three little letters, and it's enough to crush me. "Don't-" is all you allow me to say before turning your head, then shoulders, until your forehead is pressed flush to my cheek.
"I shouldn't have come."
And then you were gone, leaving me curled around the phantom of your body. My arms fall to the mattress, no longer supported by your chest, but I refuse to look. I refuse to have my last memory of you being the empty space where you had once lain. I wanted to feel your back warm against my chest, your hair tickling my nose. I wanted to think that it would never happen again but hope that it would. I had made a promise to myself, you see, that the last time was The Last Time, as in capital letters, as in proper noun.