A/N: And we're back! This story is a continuation of another that I posted not too long ago. I'd love for y'all to give it a read, but I'm going to try to write it so that it can stand on its own! There a definitely going a few trigger and/or content warnings throughout this story and any of those that may follow it. I'm currently still deciding exactly how dark I want it to be. This chapter, though, will have a *tiny* bit of nudity.
1 year after the breakup
Sam stood in his bathroom and splashed some more water on his face. Was it just him, or did being on tour for so long make him dirtier? Maybe it was him. Or the fact that he spent probably 300 out of the past 365 days on something he shouldn't have been. But hey, that was the international tour life, he was coming to find out. His eyes had new bags, he had an unfortunate 5 o'clock shadow, and apparently (read: according to his mom) he looked considerably gaunt, but he was here. And he had to get her back.
He couldn't have prepared for hearing her voice in person again. He'd kept up with her secretly on social media, something he imagined she hadn't done because she's not weird. At least not anymore. He'd heard her over the phone. When they'd met in St. Louis, he'd heard her in person, but she was tired and had been singing all night. Now, it was just her wide awake and rested. She sounded… different. She sounded happy. Like this was one of the things she looked forward to the most every week. Like she was around the people who raised her. She sounded comfortable. He nearly wanted to cry. He'd missed so much. He'd missed her so much.
"Hey, baby."
When Mercedes' head poked around his mom, he smiled. She looked beautiful as ever.
"Can we talk?"
She nodded without any words, put her coat back on, and waited for him outside.
Here goes nothing.
7 months after the breakup
Sam stepped up to the mic.
"How y'all doing tonight, St. Louis?"
The crowd cheered in response.
He smirked. "That's good, that's good." He took on the performer voice that he did when he was on stage. Low, dark, a little rough, almost like you couldn't tell if he was drunk or from the Deep South. "We're R3D. I'm Sam on vocals and guitar, to my left is Eric on the keys, to my right is Leo on vocals and guitar. We know y'all are here to hear some blues, but we're gonna start off with something a little different tonight if that's okay with y'all. This is a new one, we're performing it live for the first time tonight just for y'all. So sit back, relax and let's have a good time."
There is a roadway
Muddy and foxgloved
Whenever I'd had life enough
My heart is screaming of
11 years before the breakup
"Studio C, right? Here's your stop." The woman showed Sam to the wooden door with a big red 'RECORDING' sign lit up above it.
"Yeah, thanks. It says they're recording. Do I just go in?"
She laughed at him, and not in a way that made him feel welcome. "You're free to go in. Good luck in there, tiger." She patted him on the back a little too harshly and left him where he stood.
Sam opened the door, immediately overtaken by a cloud of cigarette smoke. He began coughing and waving smoke out of his face.
As fast as he inhaled the smoke-filled air, he was greeted by everyone else in the room with… more laughs?
He'd booked some studio time at a studio that his dad recommended to him with a mentor of sorts that he recommended as well. He was surprised at how cheap it was, but now he understood. He was apparently sharing his time with 3 other people.
A portly man with as much height as he had weight on him came up to him, a bright smile on his face. "You must be Gregg's son. Samuel, right?"
He replied meekly, "I go by Sam, but yeah."
"Ha. Hey, Samuel. I'm Big Red. These," he presented the three other people in the room, "are my protégés. That's Leo in the booth, that's Eric at the soundboard, and that's Mercedes, my lone protégéss, on the couch doing whatever the hell she wants as usual."
Sam waved at them, repeatedly squinting his eyes as they adjusted to the smoke. "Hi."
From the booth, Leo said, "What are you here for, Samuel?"
Able to breathe and see enough so others couldn't tell he nearly just died, Sam spoke a little louder, "Uhh, it's just Sam. What am I here for?"
"What do you do? Play? Sing? Write? What?"
"Mostly sing and play, yeah. Blues, some folk, some country, a little bit of everything, really, but those are my main three."
"Oh, shit!" Eric turned in his chair, picking up his cigarette. "We getting some blue-eyed soul up in here Big Red? You brought us a modern-day Tom Jones or something?"
Big Red said, "I don't know, Eric. His daddy, Gregg Evans, is a good friend of mine. White man who can play the hell out of a guitar. So I guess that depends if his son's got the same knack that he does." He eyed Sam. "Do you?"
Sam stared back at him for a moment before it hit him: his dad said there was going to be a moment, pretty early on, where they'd make him show them what he's got. This must be it. "Ahh…" He scanned the room as he saw Mercedes set down the Zippo lighter she'd just used to re-light her cigarette. "You finished with that?" He asked her.
She blew out some smoke and looked calmly at him before gesturing for him to take it with her head and eyes, raising her brows as if she had been waiting on him to move already.
He quickly stepped over to her and reached across her (rather awkwardly) for the lighter, jumping a little when she thrust her chest at him. "S-sorry," he mumbled.
She smirked wickedly and the other men in the room laughed at him.
Eric explained, "That's just Mercedes. She does that, man."
Mercedes shrugged nonchalantly as she grabbed a beer bottle from the mini fridge beside her and opened it. "Sorry. Maybe I've just had too much to drink," she said, taking a plentiful swig.
"Alright Hall," Leo made room for Sam in the booth, "show us what you've got and make it good before I call Oates on you."
As the other men began busting their guts at his expense once again, Mercedes quieted them. "Leave him alone," she said over them all. "Let him play." Then, she pointed to Sam with her cigarette. "I better not regret doing that. Don't fuck up."
Sam quickly chose an acoustic guitar from the wall and went straight into playing. He tried to start off gentle, fingerpicking the likes of Skip James, before moving on to whatever came to mind, like Lightnin' Hopkins' "Mojo Hand." He then picked up the lighter and slid all over Robert Johnson's discography as he pleased. After some time, he hung the acoustic up and reached for an electric without skipping a beat. He started right away again with something his dad would be proud of, "Rollin' and Tumblin'" by Muddy Waters. He kept switching up the songs and licks until he hit Joe Bonamassa's "Cradle Rock" and "Born Under A Bad Sign" by Albert King. But of course, he switched to Jimi Hendrix's version of King's song just to throw in Jimi's twists on it. Lastly, he finished off with some improvisation of his own. He had to have played for about 5-10 minutes. He couldn't tell, but he had to. He put the guitar back in its place and looked to everyone outside of the booth. "Was that alright?"
Big Red stood up from the chair he'd moved to sometime during Sam's third song and whispered, "Well, I'll be damned."
"Shit, man!" Eric jumped up, excited. "I thought you were in here on some Simon and Garfunkel bullshit, but you're coming up more on Stevie Ray Vaughan. You might just fly, Samuel."
Sam grinned. "Thanks. It is Sam, though. Just want to make that clear—"
"Alright, Samuel," Big Red motioned for him to come out of the booth. "Come out here, sit for a bit, and you'll see how we work. Leo'll go back in, then Mercedes, then you, and then we'll be done for the day. Everyone stays for everyone's time, no matter what order you go in." He patted him on the shoulder for a job well done. "Sit next to Mercedes. Maybe try to keep her in order, if at all possible."
Getting back into the booth, Leo said, "He'll be the first to ever do it!"
Sam sat down next to the woman and offered her her lighter back. "Thanks."
She took it from him, her fingers lightly brushing his. "We don't get a lot of white boys in here who can play the blues. Real, deep, classic blues, not just the rock shit," she said, relighting her cigarette once more since she'd neglected to draw on it while he played.
"I get that." He cursed himself for being so awkward.
She blew smoke out in front of her. "I knew you wouldn't embarrass me, by the way. You've got to be good for Big Red to take you on. Still, I didn't know you had it like that."
He frowned. "Had it like that?"
A snicker came from her mouth as she swallowed a mouthful of beer. "It's like Eric said. You might just fly, white guy."
He nodded understandingly. "So what are you in for?" He noticed her fingertips were trimmed all the way down but didn't see any callouses. "I'm guessing not guitar."
"Oh, god no. I mean, I think it's great and all, but my fingers are way too short for that shit. I play piano a little. But mainly, I'm a writer and a vocalist." She wiggled her eyebrows as her cig neared her mouth again.
"A vocalist who smokes Newports and drinks Blue Moon right before a session?"
Mercedes blew her smoke in his face, smirking a few moments after he braved it without flinching. "We all have our vices." She tipped her bottle to her lips.
6 years before the breakup
"Look man," Leo said as they finished packing up after their show, "I'm all for you being happy, but this is Mercedes we're talking about. There's no way you actually think she's going to be able to give you whatever it is you're looking for in a girl."
Eric agreed. "I love her, but she's a nicotine-addicted alcoholic trainwreck. She won't realize how fucked up your relationship is if you're willing to ignore it.
Sam shook his head at his bandmates. "Both of y'all should be ashamed of yourselves. Mercedes is our friend." He'd been close with Leo, Eric, and Mercedes for 5 years now. He, Leo, and Eric started a band, R3D, in honor of their mentor. Mercedes had been doing her own thing, but still worked pretty closely with them, singing backup for them on several occasions. "We shouldn't talk about her like that. And she's not an alcoholic. Sure, she has a little too much to drink from time to time and she drinks at some rather inappropriate times, but we've toured with her, shared buses and hotel rooms together; we know she doesn't have a serious drinking problem."
Leo said slyly, "You'd know a lot better than us."
Sam had to turn around so they wouldn't see him blushing. He and Mercedes had been sleeping together a few times a week at this point, so Leo wasn't wrong. They were almost always spending the night at the other's place, yet they hadn't put a label on it. He was slowly working her up to it.
Except Leo and Eric thought it was a bad idea, which is what they were telling him now.
"She's a powder keg, dude," Eric warned. "Between her issues and your natural habit for danger, if you two do this, shit's going to go boom in your faces eventually. Probably ours, too."
Mercedes reached for a cigarette as she let her sheets fall over her breasts.
As was now customary, Sam took the lighter from the nightstand on his side of the bed and lit it for her as she leaned forward.
She leaned back and they rested on opposite sides of her headboard, facing one another, their legs just barely touching. "You know this is what I do, right?" She drew on the tobacco. "I jump into a relationship that won't work with a guy that I'm not fond enough of and shit blows up in our faces, probably others', too. We argue, shit gets thrown around, walls get punched in, people get hurt, blase, blase, no one lives happily ever fucking after. The breakup heard 'round the world."
He studied her and asked, "What if I told you I didn't care?"
"Do you know what foxglove is?" She ignored his question, proceeding when he shook his head. "It's a flower. Also called Dead Man's Bells. They're super pretty. Incredible to look at, so people using them as decorations a lot. When I was a kid, my siblings and I would stick our fingers in them, like little gloves. You can mostly touch them without a problem, but get too close, ingest them, they're toxic. Maybe even deadly. Dead Man's Bells. I mean, death is rare, but they will still fuck you up in a major way."
"Wow."
"Uh-huh. The kicker is they're used for medicinal purposes right here in the US of A."
"A toxic flower is used in Western medicine?"
"Hell yeah. See, Sam," she sat up a little, "I'm like foxglove. Pretty to look at. People love to think about all the things they can do with me, placing me wherever they want," she smirked lightly, "sticking their fingers in me. And I'm fucking amazing when used for the right things. But when they decide not to keep their distance, shit gets real ugly real fast. Dead Man's Bells. If you fuck with me—"
"I'm a dead man, got it. Now, what if I told you I didn't care?" He repeated his question as he leaned over and kissed her, taking in the smoke she'd just inhaled and blowing it back in her face. "I don't usually know when to leave well enough alone."
"I'm not gonna be able to give myself over to you, dude. You do realize that? You want a wife and picket fence. I'm too fucked up for that lovey-dovey bullshit."
"You think I'm scared of getting romantically close to you because you're obsessed with menthols and chase your vodka with orange juice straight out of the carton in the mornings?"
"You should be," She said as if it were obvious, taking a long drag.
He shrugged before giving her another deep kiss, placing her cigarette in the ashtray, and laying her down on her back. "We all have our vices."
And in a few days
I will be there, love
Whatever here that's left of me
Is yours just as it was
11 months after the breakup
"Sam, get your ass in here," Gary, Sam's manager called him into his makeshift office in the rundown studio.
Sam jogged in. "Hey, Gary."
The grey-haired man motioned for him to have a seat. "So, what's this I'm hearing about you wanting a trip back home? You do realize you're some 10,000 miles from Nashville right about now, correct?"
"I know. I've got some things I need to take care of. Stuff I gotta do, people I gotta see."
"This about Mercedes?"
Sam answered honestly, "I have to make things right with her. It's taken me long enough. I was supposed to be back by now, but—"
Gary held up his hand. "Save it. We'll work something out. As twisted as both of you are, you need each other. Well, you certainly need her. Give me a month."
"Thanks, thanks so much, but what do you mean I certainly need her?"
Gary just looked at him. "Do we need to go over London?"
"So I had a few too many."
"And punched out a guy you'd never met before in a pub. How about we talk about Edinburgh?"
In defense of himself, he said, "Who knew the Scotts were a bunch of speedballers? I didn't."
"And let's not even mention Amsterdam."
At this, Sam chuckled slightly. "You haven't lived if you've never tried ecstasy before, though. Am I right? And that one's even less my fault than the others. I mean, why name something so potent something that's so reminiscent of a good time?!"
Gary wasn't amused. "Cut the bull, Sam. Do you want this tour or not?"
Sam gulped. "I do."
"Do you want to go commercial or not?"
"I do."
"Then stop fucking around and act like you've got some sense. You've got talent, boy. Real talent. But whatever you're going through is causing you to blow it. So, I'm gonna get you home and back to Mercedes. Come back ready to work. Got me?"
1 year after the breakup
Sam and Mercedes didn't hug when they were both outdoors. He wanted to go in for one, but she'd kept her arms wrapped around her midsection.
"Let's take a walk," he said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it as they left his mom's front door.
When he offered one to her, she shook her head.
Of course, she wouldn't. She hasn't smoked in four years.
"Since when do you smoke?"
"Picked it up," he explained. "Gotta have something to occupy myself. Something to calm me." And to keep him away from the illegal stuff.
"Isn't that what the music is for?"
He chuckled. It was.
"With as hard as y'all tried to get me to quit, I didn't think you would've started yourself so soon." When he didn't say anything again, she looked straight ahead. "So why are we talking? What about?"
He blew out some smoke. "I want us to be together. I want us back."
Abruptly, she stopped walking and turned to face him. "Are you okay?"
"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because you're, I don't know," she sized him up, "30 pounds lighter, you started fucking smoking, and you smell like a distillery. You don't look okay."
"But I'm back."
"No, you're not," her voice was calm yet adamant. "'Back' would be you, mostly the same as you left a year ago, standing in front of me. This isn't you. You're not back. What happened to you?"
Sam shook his head. "That doesn't matter, okay? What matters is that this is who I am now, this is what I've got." He tried ignoring the fact that he sounded like some fiend. "This is who I am after a year and I may be different, but I'm still yours. Always have been." He grabbed her hands.
Mercedes stared up into his tired eyes, then let go of him. "Do you know how long it took me to get over you? It took almost nine months for me to feel like a regular person again and I'm still not there completely. You threw away everything, Sam. You were okay with breaking up with me forever because we'd be spending 8 months apart."
"Something I shouldn't have done. I know that now and I'm sorry."
She crossed her arms. She wasn't angry at him, but she wasn't going to pretend that what he did didn't hurt her. "You told me we could be whatever it was we wanted to be together. I told you how much loving you freaked me out and you convinced me that we were going to do better and be better. And we did. Outside of…" she trailed off and restarted, a little quieter this time, "Outside of losing the babies, we were doing it. Every part of our lives was better and we hardly had any truly bad days."
He nodded. "We were where we needed to be. I want us to get back to that."
"Yeah, we were. Until you decided otherwise. Then, it just felt like everything I was saying that night was finally making its appearance."
He looked away from her. "The night that we took a break."
"Yup."
"You really thought that after all we went through together, I still only cared about myself and what I could get from you?"
She shrugged. "I felt like maybe I should've known better than to believe you when you told me it wasn't true. Do you know how much that fucked with me? I changed so much not for you, but because of you and everything you brought into my life. And all of a sudden that wasn't cutting it for you. God, fuck you for that." She let out a huff. "Sorry. I don't mean to be- I know we're friends and everything but that shit hurt, so fuck you. Fuck that specific version of you."
"I'm sorry, Mercedes. I really am. I want to spend however long we have together making it up to you."
In one breath, she said, "If you wanted to make it up to me, you'd leave me alone to figure out what the hell I'm doing in my life without you. Because you'd realize that if I didn't still love you, I'd curb stomp you where you stand after showing up unannounced and asking to 'talk' after barely talking for an entire year."
He bit back a chuckle.
"Why are you here, Sam? Really?"
"I'm here for you. That's it. I'm not me without you. I need you, baby."
She resumed their walk. "You need a bath and a nicotine patch."
He smiled. A lot had changed, but she hadn't. He could get her back.
Just as it was, baby
Before the otherness came
Around 5 years before the breakup
"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, HAPPY NEW YEAR!"
"Fuck," Sam rasped over the cheers on the other side of the door just before he nearly fell over onto Mercedes, holding her tightly to him on top of the sink. He slammed his hand on the wall beside the bathroom mirror just in time to save them both.
They were both panting too hard to speak. He kissed her sloppily, relishing the taste of cherries and tobacco and chocolate stout despite himself. Then he hung his head around her neck.
As her chest heaved against his and she felt his sweaty cheek against hers, Mercedes ran her hand up the back of his neck and through his long hair. Gulping and catching her breath enough to speak, she said, "So, how does it feel to literally come into the new year?"
"Like we should've done it a year ago," he breathed.
She laughed loudly, not quite expecting him to say that.
"Can you believe we made it? A whole year."
A quick couple of knocks on the bathroom door, to which Mercedes responded with a yell, "Ocupado!" Then she frowned. "What do you mean? We didn't get together on New Year's Day. We've already been together a year and four months."
"No, but that was our first year top to bottom." He pushed himself off of the mirror, still holding her against him.
"Shit. I guess you're right. I never thought we'd have gotten this far, either."
"See?"
"Damn. Makes me want to celebrate all over again," she growled and pulled him in for a kiss.
The knocks came again. This time harder, louder, and in threes.
Mercedes broke the kiss and yelled louder, "Jesus, would you give us a fucking minute?!"
Sam laughed and kissed her again. "We should probably rejoin the general population."
"Uh uh. I'm not done with you."
"Baby, these people are drunk and they probably have to pee. Not a good combo. Let's go."
They rearranged their clothes and left the bathroom, Mercedes returning the expression of the line of people gawking at them. She gasped, mimicking them, before she spat, "Fuck off."
With his hand on the small of her back ushering her through the line, Sam apologized profusely, "Sorry. So sorry. We just got a little carried away. Happy New Year to all of you. Sorry."
They got back to their friends at the bar.
"Oh, shit," Eric said, "the lovebirds are back from doing God only knows what!"
Mercedes laughed. "Kiss my ass, Eric. And get me another Sam Smith."
He shook his head. "We're in London tonight, Mercedes. I only respond to those who speak like Englishmen."
Sam chuckled as he took the stool beside his girlfriend, wrapping an arm around her waist.
Mercedes nodded, accepting the challenge with a British accent, "Don't be a twat, Eric, slide over another stout. And don't ever call me a lovebird again or I'll kick you in the bollocks and find a pip pip cheerio to shove up your arse!"
Eric rolled his eyes and handed her another beer. "What about you, Samuel?"
"You know, Eric, in the spirit of the new year, I think you can finally call me Sam like just about everyone else does."
He thought for a bit. "Nah. You want a drink or no?"
Sam chuckled and shook his head. "I'm good."
Leo sat down in between Eric and the couple. "Jeez, Mercedes. When you gonna let go of this church boy?"
Mercedes turned her head to Sam, grinning at him as she stuck a pork rind in her mouth.
Eric and Leo decided to get up in front of the pub and playing some music for them. Sam and Mercedes stayed back at the bar with his arm around her.
She lay her head on his shoulder. "I wonder where we'll be a year and four months from now."
He dropped his head to give her a quick kiss. "I'm putting my money on Paris. Maybe Sydney. Just like this."
And I knew its name
The break, 3 ½ years before the breakup
"For the last time, Sam, I don't have to explain shit to you. If I needed to up and leave, that's my business."
"You don't do shit like that, Mercedes! Even if it is your business. Why couldn't you have just let me be there for you? "
They were having yet another argument about her dropping off the face of the earth for 6 months. Mercedes had gotten the news that her label was dropping her and wouldn't be moving forward with her solo project. She told Sam and left town that night without notice. She turned off her phone, deactivated all her socials, and ghosted. They had no correspondence except for her texting him periodically around month 4 from an unknown number:
I'm not dead.
I'm fine.
I'll be back soon.
Stop looking for me.
Cancel the missing person's report.
I called the police and called the search off myself.
She showed up on Sam's door several weeks later, offering nothing on what exactly happened or where she'd been, simply saying she needed to "clear her head." He ripped into her for leaving and then they had I miss you sex and went along like nothing happened. Well, unless he was ripping her a new one and trying to figure out where she went and they fought, like they were doing now.
She stood from the couch and took their dirty plates to the kitchen, flinging them into the sink. "I can do shit like that and I do. You know why? Because it's my life." She began cleaning the stove.
Sam followed her. "Except it's not just your life, Mercedes."
"Oh, get over it already."
"You left without so much as a warning to anyone. I filed a missing person's report! We held vigils for you!" He watched as she ignored him, moving from the stove to the kitchen island with her dishcloth, wiping it down. He said, "I was starting to plan a memorial service!"
She rolled her eyes. "It'd been four and a half months, Sam. You were not planning a memorial service."
"I was!"
"And why would you do that?"
He looked at her like she was crazy. "Because I love you!"
She laughed, "Well, that was your first mistake. I told you from the jump that that wasn't going to work."
"So it's my fault for falling in love with you anyways?"
"Yup." Her eyes never left the island as her arm made its rounds with the rag religiously.
"Mercedes, look at me." He was growing tired of her acting like she didn't care about him or his feelings. "Look at me!"
"What?!" She yelled. "What, Sam? What do you want? Here," she launched the rag into the sink with the dishes and propped herself up on her elbows on the island, facing him. "Okay, everything's all done and put away. You have my full undivided attention. Since you can't seem to do anything without it. So what is it that you would like to say? Hmm? All eyes and ears are on you, Captain Save A Hoe."
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Fuck you."
She gave another laugh, an ironic one, as her eyes widened. "Oh, fuck me? Yeah, fuck me, alright. Since I seem to be the only person who can get your dick hard. Otherwise, why stick around all this time?"
"I stuck around because I cared about you," he said lowly.
"Please, no you don't." She stood up from the counter. "You don't care about me, Sam," she said, exasperated. "You don't care about anybody but yourself. You care about what you want, how you feel, and what you're willing to put up with. You don't give a shit about me!"
"One could say the same about you, so what's the difference between us?"
"That's not the low blow you think it is. Because the difference between us is that me," she pointed to herself, "I accept it; I own my bullshit. I've never been unclear about who I am or what I want. You," then to him, "you lie about it. You pretend to care about others so that you can get whatever it is you want from them. Just fucking say that, and things would be so much easier between not just us, but you and everybody else."
He walked over to her. "The only reason things aren't easier between us is that you keep acting like a fucking child. Only thinking about how your actions affect you and no one else.."
"That's right. For the fifteenth time tonight, I can do whatever the fuck I want."
He finally shouted, as if he'd been holding back before. "But that's not how it works here!"
She didn't seem phased.
"Here, we share each others' lives. When something happens to one of us, it happens to both of us. You're not a free agent when you're in a relationship, Mercedes."
"Then let's just not be in one!" She blurted.
He huffed. "Seriously?"
She kept her volume, "Seriously."
He ran his tongue along his top row of teeth, sucking them. Then nodding, he backed up. "Okay, fuck it, then."
"Fuck it is right. And fuck you, too."
"Yeah, whatever," he droned, going to grab his things. "Fuck you."
She screamed, "FUCK YOU! Now get out of my house."
He shook his head. "I can't believe you. You're really gonna do this?"
"Did I stutter? Get the FUCK out of my house before I call the police about another missing person's report, only this time, it won't be mine."
He brushed his nose with his thumb angrily and walked out.
Hope y'all enjoyed! Let me know what you think!