All the Difference
Author: Oro
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: I don't own Josh and Sam. But ohhhh how I wish.
Notes: To Danielle on her shitty day.
Josh's heart aches and even though it's been that way for a while now, it suddenly feels like a new sort of pain. His need to differentiate the kinds of pain is sort of upsetting for him, but he doesn't pay too much attention to it, only when he catches himself do it and suddenly becomes self conscious about his thoughts. The pain pierces him from within and he can't tell whether it's the scar or his loneliness, so he decides it's the latter and so he goes to the one place he knows he'll find comfort, which he does.
It's always been that way for Sam and Josh, since before Josh came to get Sam from New York, since before Lisa, since before they forgot what it was like when they weren't friends. They hate to admit it but it's the foundation of their friendship and they're both usually comfortable with it.
They curl up together on Sam's futon, and Josh inhales the scent of the room – Sam's scent – through his once punctured lungs. Sam dreams that Josh dies and Josh calms him down. I'm alive, he says, see this? This is me being alive. And Sam smiles with sadness in his eyes, his vision still blurry from the mist caused by the nightmare, and his lover is suddenly overly aware of his scar. He kisses Sam nonetheless and tells him to go back to sleep. He clings to Sam's warmth as he falls asleep in his arms, and Josh thinks he's thinking about the way the moonlight spills over Sam's face but he isn't.
Sam's body moves under his arm, causing him to blink, and it's morning. The sun permeates slowly through the semi closed blinds Sam had installed on his windows the previous year after a freak accident, something with a ball and a, hell, who cares. He didn't notice he'd fallen asleep and after his eyes get used to the weak light, he realizes he might have not. As he ponders this, Sam's warm breath reaches his chest, causing Josh's body to shiver slightly at the light graze of air with his skin. I'm glad you're not dead, he tells Josh's chest, half asleep. I don't know what I would've done without you.
And that makes all the difference.