Hello! It is not only Wednesday so I am back uploading but it is also Sammy's birthday. It feels like no better opportunity than today to upload this story! After uploading a chapter depicting the future of Justin and Eli at the beginning of the month and how they actually have become my end game pairing, I mentioned that I would show what happens to Sammy in all of this, after he gracefully stepped back and allowed Justin to have the future that he was destined for. Well this is it! I considered in length how I would begin that succession of tales because I have written a couple of chapters easing it in. But I've decided to just go straight for it and then I will go back and show how things ended up here for him, with chapters set before this one :P I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own the story and the OCs mentioned :)
The closer that time drew towards midnight, the more Sammy started wondering what on earth he was doing! The cold clung to and attached itself to the bones of his bottom a long time ago and now not even hugging his arms around himself was bringing any reprieve to the chill that he was feeling. His head shook, his curtain-like locks shimmering around his features.
Any normal person would've given up hours ago. Then again, his head switching from shaking and seeing the dimly lit lights of the street from an angle, he contemplated to himself that he'd never been that. He'd never felt normal, not really.
He had never believed that anybody loving whoever they wanted to love could be harmful – sinful, even. And he had certainly never swallowed the things that he was told. He needed to take a bite out of an apple for himself to know it was really a shiny, red fruit. Any normal person would've given up hours ago. Sammy was not normal and he was not giving up.
Then suddenly it dawned on him and the chill that ricocheted through his bones and his stomach was at that point not due to the October weather. He was okay with not being normal. But he didn't want to be the type of person that crossed a line, behaving in an uncomfortable way.
His lower lip fell into his mouth and he at least felt a small amount of comfort at the offering of some warmth that he felt. Despite the fact that he couldn't shake that haunting worry from rushing through him, he decided that he would stay five more minutes. He would sit there five more minutes. He would wait for five more minutes. And then that would be it. He would decide to move on.
Well, five minutes came and went. He gave his wristwatch on his tattooed arm the chance to jolt forward two more times. But then that really was it.
Possessing a smile on his face that not even he to this day understands the meaning behind, his frozen fingers wrapped around the metallic bar belonging to the rail leading up to the street side looming hotel. In the same way that he couldn't fathom his own, almost polite and pressed together smile, he couldn't decipher the feeling in his heart either.
How could he be disappointed by something that wasn't meant to happen? He couldn't. Or at least, he tried to encourage himself to do his best in not feeling like a deflated balloon.
It was in the same second that his wrist jolted into action and he attempted to pull himself up by the well-kept railings and the steps were nearing on just possessing a bottom print to speak of their time with the Alolan man that that same man was halted in his tracks.
The sound of laughter from inside the hotel caught his attention. That hadn't been the first time; of course, for there was a gathering there that was jovially taking place. However, this time it felt different. It felt different to his core rather than to his ears. And then time appeared to move very slowly when the glass paned large and oak double doors swung open and that giggling noise became all the more apparent.
Sammy then understood why he had waited for so long. The person he was waiting for had been so worth it. And when the corner of his eye traced the silhouette of her, he knew that he had never been less mistaken about anything in his life.
To deeply contrast the midnight hues of the suit that he was wearing, she appeared like an angel in white between two of her friends and it made the whole iris of Sammy take in the sights rather than just the corner of his eye. And at first, because he had been waiting for so long, it was like she really was a ghostly spectre and he couldn't know for sure that it was definitely sure.
He was made plainly aware of the truth, however, when she stopped giggling softly within an arm of each of her friends and their eyes locked. Sammy was glad he was holding onto the railings still and somehow managed to hitch himself up in his own politeness.
Breath hitched in her throat. Her friends turned too. Her lower lip had just a second to feel the digging of her front two teeth and then she was talking, her green orbed gaze dancing not simply due to the porch light of the hotel which jumped into life.
"What are you doing here?" Lucy said these words rather than saying anything else at all. And rather than saying even his name. She could feel her friends either side of hers grip loosening as they too realized who had been sitting there and was now standing.
For one single, passing second, Sammy believed that his knees were going to buckle and he would tumble backwards, making a truly embarrassing display in front of the hotel. He was sure glad that he had the railings to hold onto!
Even so, his touch appeared casual as it felt the freezing pole in between his fingers and he used his other hand to ruffle through his own locks. Sitting there in the cold and knowing how far time had moved on without even needing to look at a clock, he had wondered how he was going to explain his presence when and if Lucy appeared before him once again.
In truth, the word "if" had rattled through his mind far more than once. He had believed that it was hopeless. So as he stood at that point, his mind was empty of the things that he contemplated speaking to her.
Seconds passed and he didn't say anything in response to the woman with hair the color of spring. Her friends started to feel knots in their perfectly plucked brows, waiting for the man to actually say something. Anything!
Then, words tumbled out of his lips before he could stop them. He suddenly greeted her in a way that wasn't meant to be understood by anybody else, only then. Out of nowhere and to combat all of the prior overthinking, Sammy began to feel like it was just he and Lucy in the world again.
"Lucinda Squidge." He greeted her at last in return; his words a far cry from her own blunt ones. He would've usually made a great effort to not say this kind of thing in front of her friends but her friends were not there, were they? It was just the two of them. "How wonderful you look tonight."
Sammy added, his tattooed fingers falling away from his locks and moving to trace over his own lips instead, his eyes having half a moment to glance over at her outfit and properly admire what she was wearing. Yes, she was the day in comparison to his night. She was the pure in contrasting his devilishness. She was light and he was dark. And she blinded him. In the best way.
For just a second, Lucy felt caught between one, single moment with the Alolan man. And it was this sensation that caused her teeth to almost be revealed as she smiled, softness gracing her prior surprised features.
But her friends re-hooking their arms back within hers bought her back to reality. And she seemingly did not care for his flattery at all. She found herself asking a second time, leaving Sammy rather promptly feeling like he had crossed a line.
"What are you doing here, Sammy?" she repeated, that time adding his name after her words. In truth, they tumbled out of her in the same way that all of his had escaped from him.
Sammy hoped that he wasn't becoming carried away when he believed that that meant something. Her rephrasing her prior sentence by just a tiny amount had to mean that maybe he had crossed a line – but it was not a distance that was inappropriate to venture.
He could not ignore his heart elevating when he heard his name spoken by her pale pink lips. Hitching himself up another step, he used this giddy desire – but innocence desire – to fuel his next words. Feeling Lucy's friends' eyes still on him and hers as well, his own gaze became very brown and pure.
A doe brown stare loomed over at the yellow haired woman.
"I think you know the answer to that." he replied, his eyes seeming all the more like moons in the sky within their almond shaped homes from the way that his head sincerely dipped down in the same moment that his lower lip fell back into his mouth.
Lucy's shoulders dropped. She knew that she would've liked to keep gazing back at Sammy, to fathom out why exactly he was there because he hadn't really given her a straight forward answer, as well as finding it natural to swim in those muddy pools.
Yet instead, her spring green colored orbs looked between both of her friends instead. In return, their manicured grips on her arms tightened but hitches found themselves in their throats, their own heads tilted.
Silently, they conferred with each other and Lucy too what they were going to do. And then one of them decided to pipe up, not fretting for a single second the protection that they had in front of the tattooed male.
"Shall we leave you to it?" the lady with hair a similar shade to Sammy's own locks asked Lucy who, in spite of their similar age range, very much felt like the baby in between the care of two older, mother hens.
Lucy's orbs threatened to switch towards Sammy when she felt his head raising yet again, his mouth wanting to purse together when he started to read the natural level of protection that was within a girl gang. And even if it was due to a man that they all knew very well.
She managed to keep looking between her friends instead, then focusing on the other lady who was far more silent but always had far more to say too when she got going. The richer yellow haired woman surveyed the situation and in the same way the former didn't care about her intention being read by Sammy, she didn't try to hide her studious eyes from flicking in the direction of him either.
It hadn't gone unnoticed by her how quiet Lucy had been for the entire evening, and even when they were doing their make up at her house before. When they actually arrived at the work do and held champagne glasses in their hands and were at the event hosted by the hotel, it became all the more obvious that things were on her mind.
Prior to their initial suspicions, it was not due to the only recent parting of ways with the man that Lucy had dated who had a heart of gold and an accent that was far stronger than his personality.
Don't worry; they told her, we can just enjoy being ourselves tonight. We can see the sights that the opposite sex has to offer on the night but when the night is said and done, we can all go home together and just be women.
Lucy had said that sounded nice. But barely half an hour after that decision was made, she made yet another one. She wanted to skip all of the drinking and the ogling and just settle back home with her gang of girls and maybe a movie too.
In truth, that sounded good to all of them. So that's why they left the event earlier than they anticipated. That was why they made their way through the double doors. And that's why they were later found standing in front of Sammy.
Time passed all the more slowly for Sammy in the moment that he was being surveyed than it had done when he was actually waiting for Lucy, especially when he felt the gaze of the yellow haired friend of hers. But the gaze was not only firm but fair, but as easy-going as the wind too.
This lady in particular decided to give Lucy's arm an extra squeeze, an empathetic nod altering the position of her face.
"We'll text you when we get home safely." She began, her touch itching to trace along her friends porcelain skin in admiration as much as she was doing it in a motherly way. But she refrained, understanding how surprised she must feel to be standing in front of the reason she couldn't quite enjoy herself on that night. "Join us when you're done chatting."
And with that, following her hold tightening around her friends arm, Lucy was then let go of and the brown haired woman followed suit. Nods were offered to Sammy still standing there in spite of it all and soon enough, it was Lucy's two friends who joined arms, secretly thinking the same exact words as they walked away, even if they didn't utter a single syllable.
They wouldn't see her for the rest of the night, they believed. Lucy would be going home with somebody else.
Her two friends left the wind blowing and silence in their wake. Peculiarly, the atmosphere then felt far more suffocating and halted than it had when Sammy knew that he was receiving the third degree. He had planned so much of what he was going to say, what he was going to do.
And now that he was actually alone in the presence of Lucy, he was speechless. He didn't know what to do at all. He didn't know what to say.
Thankfully for him, before he could make a pitiful attempt or even muster up a polite smile as he went back onto clinging to the railing with his right hand for comfort, Lucy made the next move. Her arms hugging around herself as she no longer had the companions of hers to bring her warmth; she took one step down the stairs.
Sammy was forced to take a similar one but backwards. His doe eyes appeared yet again as he was encouraged to listen.
"I'm speechless." She began. Apparently it was the same feeling for her even if she had actually been able to muster words. Sammy felt choked even if his raven colored tie was loose like a school boys but that didn't stop his ability to be able to listen. "What are you actually doing here?"
In the same way that the constriction of his neck tie did not dampen his hearing abilities, it didn't numb his observational skills either. Perhaps that single step backwards helped as well. That time as Lucy uttered these words, he could hear an extra girlish-ness in her tone and her eyes flickered like she was a small rabbit in the headlights of his eyes.
A warm feeling was sent from the pit of Sammy's stomach and up words his throat via his chest, like his gut was urging him to use his vocal chords to speak from ways of the heart. But unlike when the sight of her previously propelled him into acting foolishly and utterly himself, there was something in him that nagged at him to be honest in the most boring way.
The steps leading up to the looming hotel felt the contact of his bottom yet again. He still held onto the railings as he perched, explaining the situation to the yellow haired woman who did not sit just yet.
"I… I felt weird you going to a posh do and me not being there. So I hoped you felt the same." He mundanely told her, trying not to allow his tone of voice to elevate nor decline. A tilt of her head and an extra dance in her eyes told him that that didn't exactly explain why he had been sitting in the cold. "I tried to tell the usher that I would be joining you. I showed a photograph of us to prove I knew you. That wasn't enough. I said, please fetch Lucy Bolton. They said there was no Lucy Bolton inside. They said they would keep an eye out for you… I guess they didn't."
I guess they didn't, were the words of the century for this particular story. While Sammy explained to Lucy exactly what had happened, she couldn't stop her mind from picturing the entire fiasco. Him arriving at the scene in his rented tuxedo and one thing on his mind and that being him offering company simply for old time's sake.
That intention of his being ripped away from him when the usher was a little too good at his job. She imagined him trying to figure out how one earth he could have gotten her name wrong. She imagined his frustration when time passed and even ushers past and nobody spoke to him another time. She imagined his patience and how much it must have taken for him to wait there until nearly midnight.
Lucy didn't allow herself to ponder that last part too hard. Instead, her own words finally replied back to Sammy's explanation, for some reason deciding to focus on just the one thing.
"Katie thought it would be funny for me to use an alternative name…" she admitted, her expression softening all over again but somehow becoming wiser as it scrunched up, her eyebrows unable to make their mind up whether they wanted to be close together or ignore each other completely.
Sammy listened. And then Sammy stared. A torrent of wind was exuded from his nostrils and for half a moment, Lucy was fearful that his frustration had returned and she was going to be the victim of it. But she should have known that that wasn't him.
Utterly contrasting his hardened expression as he folded his arms over his chest for warmth as much as anything, his head shook, his brown locks further unravelling from their curtains and framing his tanned face.
"Damn Katie." He mused, his head moving from side to side as if it was caught in its own vortex of wind. And while he decided to act in this way, Lucy's eyebrows made up their mind and decided that they wanted to be near, drawing together and causing a light dimple to form above them.
And then, her fingers drawing together and playing with each other like they needed the company as well, she stopped deliberating whether she should remain standing to keep the distance between them or she should join Sammy. Her mind had been made up.
The Alolan male looked to the side of him and his crossed arms became a whole lot less stiff when he felt the being of Lucy moving and then he felt her body drawing closer to his. Far more than anything on this night, Sammy reacted in a way that would cause the weather to become quite jealous from the way that even that couldn't have quite as strong of a reaction from him.
Feeling the unfaltering presence of the person that he had been waiting for, his teeth began to chatter, though he tried to hide it by nonchalantly clenching his jaw and looking away. But of course, Lucy noticed. She always caught sight of the things he tried to hide from her. She acted out of instinct by catching his elbow in her two hands.
"You're chilled to the bone." She observed, trying not to allow it to be apparent on her face the sheer shock when she felt just how icy the material of his midnight colored suit jacket had become. But of course, he wasn't the only person who couldn't hide things. "You should go home, Sammy."
Lucy tried to prompt him. In spite of the fact that she made yet another batch of plans with her friends to talk to Sammy and then join them, at that point she was encouraging him to think of himself and think of the state of his body.
In that moment, Sammy was thinking of this same exact thing too, it was true. His irises within their case of almonds dropped down and he at once noticed how although the chill of his suit jacket was repellent to touch, Lucy's perfectly pink manicured fingers had not let him go.
In actuality and invisibly to herself, she had started to not only paw at the material but caress it too. Sammy's eyes dropped further down. And then once their gazes had met all over again, sat side by side on the steps leading to the hotel, he spoke of exactly what she was doing as his eyes didn't leave hers.
"And why would I do that?" he questioned, a level of seriousness in his tones that either could very much be that way or utterly carefree and jovial. For half a second, a knot threatened to again form in the brow of Lucy. Her eyes became the round street lights that decorated the roads ahead. He was… unrelenting?
She took a further second to observe. Eyelashes clapped a couple of times over her round gaze. The sudden elevation o the corner of his mouth and the sparkle within his pupil spoke of other things. No, he was not unrelenting. He was being playful.
Lucy watched as his legs stretched out in front of him and down the remainder of the steps rather than huddling closer to his body for warmth. And then she replied herself.
"I don't know why you're here." She told him and for a second time, instead of her own level of unmoving – for perhaps that was why she had believed his demeanor to be exactly that – girlishness decorated her words for a second time.
Another bunch of words silently followed the sentences that she had actually uttered even if her lips didn't move for a further time. Between the knowing that Lucy had meant to tell him the words 'I'm glad' even if she didn't technically speak them as well as feeling her leg innocently near his for the first time in what felt like forever, Sammy knew that he couldn't do a disservice to himself by holding back for another occasion.
That knowing in the deepest parts of his core became all the more resonant when a small amount of time passed and unlike the way that Lucy's friend's touch had managed not to find themselves on the face of she, it wasn't quite so accomplishable for the yellow haired woman when it came to Sammy.
In a very fleeting and simple manner, his chin felt the gentle sensation of a touch of a finger and then underneath his chin, close to his next felt the same trace of that same finger but the underside of it instead. And it was after this that transpired between them that he had to tell her the real reason that he was there.
He had touched on it briefly by saying he had felt weird not going as her plus one to a formal event but now he was going the whole hog. There was no holding back. He was not going to hold back anymore.
"I love you, Lucy…" he suddenly told her. But it was not sudden for him because he had dwelled on this fact off and on for the better part of a year. And it was not out of nowhere in speech because he spoke his words, slowly and clearly. Sammy watched Lucy's reaction as his words rung open and then he hurriedly added. "I do." He confirmed. There really was no reason to hold back. "Even when you didn't feel the same way back. Even when you found other people to date. And even now things are weird between us… It's true."
Sammy didn't know what it was about himself that made him able to maintain eye contact even with the most vulnerable displays of the heart. I'm certain that it wasn't the easiest thing for Lucy who had to look into those simple yet somehow very worldly orbs of his while he confessed to her. And while he reminded her that she did not feel the same way back.
It was her turn to have eyes like the moon that could be found full and in the sky when it was not being shrouded by clouds. What a fool. What a fool she had been. To believe that because he felt that way once didn't mean he would feel that way always. To believe that he had gotten over her. To believe that he had gotten over her, just because he was supportive when she fell into the arms of another.
Lucy was given another bout of torture yet indescribable admiration by having to look into his eyes while he unashamedly told her the truth.
He could agree that anything less than that was a sin.
"I'm long past caring whether you feel the same way back." He started again, taking a moment to push his hair out of his eyes and it was in that halting of conversation that Lucy's heart sank yet leapt in one when she knew she believed him. He didn't yearn for anything from her if she didn't want to give it. "I just…" One thing he needed was time. He took that before formulating his next words. "I miss my best friend. I miss the laughter. I miss the never-ending days. I miss this."
A wave of the hand came from Sammy but Lucy was unclear whether the last thing he missed was the opportunity to go to a black tie event together or it was their closeness as they were in that moment, their legs not touching for a single second and at that point, no parts of their body's reaching out to each other.
But somehow being entwined all the same. They were entwined with love. Even if it was two very different feelings of love coming from two very different people.
An exhalation of breath making its way out of Lucy and a pause before she was unable to resist squeezing hold of his arm all over again told him that she at least felt the same way about some things. It was her turn to believe that she didn't have a single clue about how she was going to set about answering him.
Regardless, one look into his eyes and her own words came pouring out of her.
"It's hard…" It was her turn to begin and without barely a second to wait, a nod bobbed Sammy's head because he believed he knew exactly what she was going to go on to say. He believed they were united in their opposing stances, even if the way that they were sitting hinted of all of the times that they had become one. "The last thing I want to do is muck you about."
Sammy's head must not have known whether it was coming or going from the way that at that point it switched from nodding in understanding to moving from side to side. But then again, if his brain was attached to his heart which it was, it must have respected why it had to alter its own stance.
His legs grew closer to his body again, no longer stretching out and down towards the puddles which resided at the bottom of the steps. Perhaps in such a serious moment, he didn't trust himself not to dip his black boots into the water out of habit.
"You can't muck me about, Lucy." Sammy responded and although it was him with the love in his heart for her, it was the first time that her actual name danced off his tongue. "I know. I know…" He was adamant. But as he trailed off, he still couldn't quite for a second time spell out that his feelings were unrequited. "You know? And I don't expect anything from you."
Sammy had trained himself for his whole life to not be overcome with the niggling of ego and for him to be overjoyed at the knowing that Lucy's face should've lit up in some way or another when he spoke these words to her.
Someone with an overactive confidence would've thought, ooh how wonderful I am, I'm telling the woman that I love that I expect not a single thing from her. But not the Alolan male. And above the fact that this would've told him that his words were not as sincere as he believed, Lucy's expression did not become like fairy lights on a Christmas tree.
His truly earnest words instead encouraged a frown onto her face. Her touch falling away from his elbow in order to smooth down the lines that were starting to take over her head, it was her turn to shake her own head.
Lucy practically gulped as she replied again, her words decorated with a sigh.
"It's not that…" she started again. And she started again almost sadly, the beautiful white lace of her dress dipped against the murky of the steps beneath her and though it was invisible to all, her toes curled together in her white boots.
Immediately, somehow although Sammy could not actually see the stiffness of her being, he could feel she was threatening to become a bit like a cardboard cut-out as she remained next to him. Because of this it was his turn to notice her chill – or rather, mistake a chill from her – and feel a frown decorating his own features.
"Then what is it…?" he questioned. It was lucky that he had resisted all ego and not thought his own words oozing from him he been such a delight.
With a shrug of his shoulders, his black suit jacket was reached for and taken off and planted over the shoulders of Lucy. For half a second, she tried to do a peculiar thing for her and shrug it away, with not so many words telling him that he needed it just as much as she did.
But then she melted into the familiar feeling of wearing an item of clothing belonging to Sammy. While she had still kept this up while they had indeed been friends, it still felt like that almost going home sensation had not been experienced by her in a very long time.
She could not resist anymore. She could not resist his comfort and she could not resist her own words. Though she had started shaking her head again and her mascara threatened to leave marks on her porcelain skin like bird feet marks in the snow with just how much she was blinking, trying to hold herself back, she couldn't for all that much longer.
Tremulously, her fingers found the buttons of Sammy's suit jacket so she at least had somewhere to focus. She had least had somewhere to focus while she told him and he wondered why she suddenly looked so small and mixed up.
"It's hard…" she tried again. Sammy did not know whether she was repeating her prior words or she was attempting to tell him that what she needed to say would be heard as well. It was a continual mystery. He didn't dare reach out for her elbow while it was in his suit jacket like she had done to him but he would've very much liked to. "It's hard… Because all the things that you said. I actually do feel the same way."
Something snapped within Sammy's being. He reacted like he was a branch on the sidewalk and he had been stepped on, causing him to crunch in two. It was lucky he was sitting when his knees buckled but it made no difference if he was sitting or he was standing when his shoulders buckled.
Lucy blinked all the more frequently and she tried to honor his own truth by maintaining eye contact even when she felt deeply vulnerable. But she wasn't good at it like he was. One very brief glance at his skin that was becoming almost as pale as hers was enough for her!
Instead, she filled her own vision with their legs that were side by side without making any sort of contact at all, able to read his expressions from their bond and without looking at him for a second time at all.
She felt… No…? No. No, no, no, it simply couldn't be, Sammy told himself.
He had been vastly mistaken. That was one thing that he was sure of. He was vastly mistaken. Her words had been very vague and there had to be some way to jiggle them and move them around and reveal the truth behind them that wasn't what he initially believed them to be.
No, it simply could not be. His feelings for her were unrequited and he really would learn to be fully okay with that.
This didn't stop him from making absolutely sure though.
"What do you mean…?" It was at last his turn to speak again and catching himself off guard in the same way that Lucy had thrown him for a loop, he didn't understand why his voice had to squeak at that point. And for the life of him, he wouldn't work out why he had to begin to laugh!
His shoulders buckled for a different reason. They shook as he laughed out of uncertainty.
If Lucy had momentarily looked sadly at any point, she definitely did in that moment. Though whether she was sad because she suddenly felt like Sammy had been playing a trick on her all along – or his lack of belief in her – nobody could be sure.
"What do you mean, what do I mean…?" Lucy's own words came and in spite of their knowing that this moment wasn't exactly going to plan, out of hurt her cheeks threatened to become the same shade as her lipstick and her nail polish too. One, brave glance into his eyes reminded her without having to say words describing how she had not said the infamous words back the first time that he had uttered them sincerely to her. Her cheeks became all the more aflame. "That doesn't mean I haven't started to feel it more recently."
Oh Lucy, oh Lucy, Sammy thought long in hindsight. How someone could turn sweet feelings into something that someone needed to be defensive about was beyond him. But then again, that was why he did truly love her and told her of such.
She wasn't normal at all! Just like how he wasn't.
In that moment that Sammy saw her flushed cheeks and heard her words, another wave of cold washed over him like he had been caught in the Galar Region Sea. Although he had reacted initially with very surprised shoulders and movements, he hadn't allowed himself to fully comprehend her words in case he had been mistaken.
In his mind, he told himself that she felt the same about other parts of his words, not the part that he boldly had begun with. She missed their friendship - that had to be it. She missed their laughter, how could she not? She felt just as weird going to that formal event without him as he felt when she went without him, he now knew it.
No, he told himself within his own mind. They shared some similar thoughts. But not all of them. It was silly to get your hopes it. It was silly to get your hopes up when you had spent so long putting them to the back of your mind.
However, hearing confirmation from Lucy herself made those thoughts ping back to the front of his mind like they were a jack in the box. And in that same exact way, his body lurched forward. Sammy knocked the flush out of Lucy's cheeks by appearing even closer to her on the steps, their thighs definitely pressed together at that point.
He had completely lost the instinct within him to play it somewhat cool. He knew from the words that she had uttered and from the rosy cheeked expression that she did actually love him too. And he was propelled into action again.
"Well that's wonderful." He replied in the same way that he had complimented her outfit and as if she had simply told him that she had fetched what he needed from the grocery shop. Lucy still could not look at him out of an array of things and it caused his heart to soar and his face to light up like he was basking in the glorious sun of the region that he called home. "So what are we waiting for?"
Crossing lines was something Sammy tried not to do. In the same way, he tried not to bounce from one stance to the other, holding back and then speaking whatever thought that popped into his mind. But in that moment and on that night, he had become alive. And nothing could stop his hands from reaching out towards Lucy's face, longing to cup the features of the person who had pieced together his broken heart.
Nothing could stop him until Lucy did stop him. Her almost forlorn expression had not washed away.
"Sammy…" she said his name, that single word having the effect of if she had clearly and eloquently put forth to him a great many things.
I supposed it was good that he still had control of his heart even if he was off his face in love with her. His hands dropped away from trying to hold her the minute that he was subtly but very unfalteringly shown the door.
In the instant that she forced her rainy meadow orbs to look back at him with an expression that was then solemn but still had a quality of a hopeful school girl wondering if she was going to be taken to the prom by her crush, Sammy understood a percentage of the words she had been meaning to say instead of simply his own name.
And he put these words forth back to her.
"So what are you waiting for…?" he wondered, changing his prior sentence only just. It was amazing just how much it changed it, though. He didn't intend for these words to come out bitter. Like he was blaming her in any way, shape or form. He wasn't. He just knew in his heart that beat with love for her that he wouldn't be the one stopping their relationship from taking a huge leap forward.
The sigh that emerged from Lucy's nostrils as well as her lips spoke that for half a second, she feared that he was being vinegary with her and that she was to blame. However, after looking down to both of their knees, she couldn't resist looking to his angular yet very accessible features and it was once she found this courage that she found answers too.
She found the truth in his face. And it allowed her to be frank with him as well.
"It's…" Lucy started before she could stop herself and in the same way, Sammy had to fight very hard to not outwardly flinch. He prayed that she would not allow the word 'hard' to follow her beginning like had happened frequently on that night and on those steps. "Complicated." Sammy had to fight not to falter some more and just listen. "I've wanted to talk to you about this for a while… I've wanted to since we last…"
Lucy didn't dream of finishing that sentence. Those sort of sentences were left being described by the moments that had taken place themselves, she thought. Fortunately for her, she didn't need to elaborate and Sammy was completely clued in.
For a half second, he didn't know whether his expression should alter entirely and he should give her a bit of a look or he should continue being low-key, and listening. He settled on the latter and on top of that, the more that not too much time passed, he found it easy to be this way and easy to find his own voice.
The last thing he wanted was for his love to feel conflicted. So he told her of such.
"You can always talk to me about anything. You know that." he told her. Nevertheless, perhaps she did not know this because he needed to remind her.
Either way, a nod of the head came from Lucy and after she looked down towards her legs, her hands reached out and cupped over her own knees for something to do. How cold she must feel without any tights, Sammy inwardly thought. But there was a portion of him that wouldn't dream of wrapping his arm around her even though there was a chance it would have been welcomed.
He meant it when he said he didn't expect anything from her. And he wanted her to believe what was completely the truth.
The two of them sat in silence for some time while the both of them waited for words to come to either of them. It made sense that it would be Lucy's turn to speak next because Sammy had bestowed the last uttering but if she didn't have things to say, then she shouldn't have been made to come up with something simply for the sake of it.
They were united by their legs stretching out in front of them. And they were then too united by a soft and innocent hand of each other's resting on the thigh of the person sat next to them.
Not that a single stranger past by in the dead of the night but if they had, they would've just thought they were seeing two people that were having a meaningless conversation, not pouring their hearts out to one and other and trying to figure out a future together. If they had a future together.
Lucy's hand was stagnant on the black decorated leg of Sammy. However, he started to trace and caress the lace material of her dress as much as he might've been trying to feel the skin underneath for comfort of them both.
This touch from the Alolan male sent Lucy's throat privately gasping for breath. And it was when she took this shaky inhale, words flooded into her mind in the same way that air was able to rush into her lungs.
"I want this as much as you do, you know." she tried again, her shoulder loosely colliding with Sammy's to get his attention and to also lighten things up a bit following their long but very necessary silence. Immediately, Sammy's expression was sunshine in the night. Lucy felt a hopeful grip on her kneecap. "But there are so many reasons for us not to do this. So I'm not sure that I can…"
And for another time and as the dead of the night hung about and stars did not wish to reveal themselves behind veils of clouds, Lucy's expression looked forlorn. Even so, though, she pressed her lips together in a brave smile and her hand did not break the contact away from Sammy's leg.
Maybe they would not end up together. Maybe they could not form a relationship bigger than two people who liked each other's company and the closeness of their bodies even if they both desired it. But for the time being, she was not going to move her hand away from him. She wanted to at least rest in them having a 'maybe'. Even if she felt that it would turn into a proper 'no' by morning.
"What reasons…?" Sammy wondered and immediately, Lucy had to swallow because she felt that it would add a tear to her heart, let alone his, to actually speak aloud the reasons that they could not be.
But at the time, because she felt that tear in her head as well as her heart, she believed it to be because she didn't not quite know how to put into words all the sensations and silent musings that she had had with herself over the past few months.
"So many things…" she tried to start and she knew that she would be kidding herself to think that Sammy could forget the whole thing, not needing these answers from her after all. Without looking, she knew that he was staring right back at her, those doe eyes of his longing to see more than her side profile and face that he liked buried anywhere on him. "I can't date my employer."
Lucy forced herself to look at him then, hoping to find humor within his steady gaze and so find it taking over her being as well. It was true that she did find it, the longer that she allowed her look to linger and underneath the layers of seriousness.
But at first, seriousness was all she saw and heard too, clearly having an answer for everything that she would say to him.
"I can fire you without a moment of hesitation." He told her, his eyes latching onto hers and it taking quite a long time for his mock-steely disposition to fade away and becoming much lighter when the corner of his mouth quirked upwards.
In spite of it all, Lucy felt lightness catching at her throat and her eyes narrowing at the same moment that his nose scrunch, his dual silver rings dancing in his nostrils. Well if that's how he felt about her then maybe she didn't want to go with him after all! If he was that disposable to her.
Joking completely aside, she knew that she wasn't. And she knew that even if she was, it was the children that mattered most of all. That's the point she brought up next.
"I couldn't do that to your children." She told him. After finding comfort in his teasing nature that did eventually appear to her, she rested her head on his shoulder that was half like seeking solace there but half like butting her head against him to silence any lingering overthinking. "Your nanny becoming your daddy's girlfriend is not something that you want."
A single beat was missed. Apparently Sammy had thought about it a lot and how little of a problem it was based on how promptly he replied!
"C'mon!" he disagreed with her, Lucy's head lifting a fraction in confusion from the sudden friendliness that was escaping from him. He didn't wait for her to make proper eye contact for him to take his turn to nudge his shoulder against hers. "That kind of happily ever after is what fairy tales are made out of. The devoted father and the maid."
Lucy felt that she should bash against him in that moment, in a very different way! However, she felt unable to when his sunshiny expression grew fixed and only blossomed more that he looked at her.
She wished she could be like that, she thought privately to herself. He seemed to take anything and everything on the chin. But then again, how could he not, with everything that he had been through?
He thought he had a partner for life with the father of his children only for him to realise that he must letter him go to a shorter pair of arms but were equally as sturdy.
This was the other reason that Lucy would express. Her features became creased and her eyes defiant in a dismal sort of way when faces other than Sammy's danced across her mind, even though they were not in front of her at all.
"Eli and Justin…" Was all she said and Sammy felt the further clutching of her hand against his thigh. And contrary to the fact that years ago it would have been other sorts of feelings that would make him roll his eyes when these two names were spoken as a unity, time had moved forward.
Sure, a pang still electrified his heart. But it showed just how truly he felt for Lucy if he was able to not even twitch at the name of the father of his children and his new partner in life. And especially from the words that he actually chose to say.
"They're husbands." He answered her, a flicker within his eyes that was not necessarily sadness. It was not necessary loss. It was something else. That neither he nor the woman in front of him could put their finger on. Lucy's eyes latched on to his out of surprise far more than anything else. "I doubt they're thinking of us. Not after everything that they've been through."
He shook his head one more time. Perhaps to rid himself of any feelings that reminded him that once, he would have felt hurt speaking of that subject. But that was a thing of the past. They were wed and united under the eyes of God. And that was as good of a reason as any to him to give them the respect that they deserved.
Lucy saw the growth of Sammy right in front of her. She didn't bother to stop her hands from reaching out to him, forgetting about the contact of his knees and for just a second, cupping either one of his cheeks. She didn't need to actually say anything in response. Her wordlessness was enough. It always was.
Nevertheless, after more seconds past and her touch fell away and was occupied by herself rather than the man next to her, one more word did tumble out.
Apparently she had a multitude of reasons why they would not work. Even if she wanted to wrap her arms around this man and forget all of her inhibitions and go full throttle forward towards someone the complete opposite to her but who made her feel completely besotted, she had her reasons.
She had so many of them. She spoke outwardly of some. And didn't bother to speak of the rest. It was hopeless in her mind.
Still…" she began again after another silence. And in the same way in which her quietness spoke volumes, it was this single word which said everything that she needed to say. This lonesome word almost begged for itself to be questioned – to be not given up on.
And if there was someone in this story who did not give up then it was Sammy.
All of a sudden, his body lurched closer to Lucy's all over again and he copied her gesture of cupping either side of her face. However, he did not let her features go. As soon as breath hitched in her throat and she looked into his eyes, she spoke right to her and let her go even less.
"But what is stopping you, Lucy…?" he asked her, his thumb not needing to trace down and stroke her lips because her pink lips stung like the touch of his finger or the brush of his own lips had been placed there. Doe brown eyes hypnotized her. "What is it that you really want…?"
In that instant, Sammy didn't care what reasons to not be together that she could muster for him. The previous examples had been futile. She could go on to point out their very different faiths but he had overcome that before so he wasn't scared. She could try to humour him a bit and say that Katie would have a field day with it but they knew that she would wrap her arms around them both and hold them both.
She could tell him that she wasn't good enough for him. And he would not believe her for a single second.
The only answers that he wanted to hear was that she didn't want to because she didn't want to. And he would respect that. And he would let her go in the way that she desired to be let go.
But there was a part of him that knew that she wasn't going to say this. Call it faith. Call it a hunch. Call it a knowing. Call it hope. Whatever it was, he knew he had to believe that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. She had reassured him of such. He knew he had to believe her. Because he always believed in her. And always would believe her.
Lucy melted from the first second that Sammy touched her there and then, even if she managed to stay a graceful pillar like she often was. But then the more moments that passed and the more that he asked of her and the more that she gazed into his eyes, the more answers that popped into her mind.
So many answers popped into her mind and none of them were reasons to be scared. None of them were reasons not to be with him. They were all quite of the opposite.
And eventually, she spoke words with trembling, flushed, but certain lips. Her arms falling around the neck of Sammy at long last before drooping away in order to reach for his hands at a later second, she found her voice. And she spoke to him words that he was not expecting.
Lucy answered.
"I want you to take me home with you." She told him and that later second that I described then arrived. Her own hands falling into the hands of Sammy, she encouraged him to stand up with her on the steps, just like they had been when they had first locked eyes in what felt like the first time in forever.
Lucy watched the goofy, surprised look taking over his expression. But with the same knowing and belief within her own heart, she knew that she was not going to be rejected. He would not dream of doing that to her in the same way that she had done to him!
A blush was hard to see on his tanned cheeks but the spring hair coloured lady still noticed it in the middle of the night. She could feel his touch clasping around hers barely a second after.
"Well okay then!" he complied with her, like he always complied with her. His touch was secure inside hers and that made up for the way that his legs had turned to jelly. But still, he didn't show it on the outside. Instead, he walked down the steps with the angelic Lucy in his hold compared to the devilish black of himself and he felt like he was a groom making his way down to the alter. It was this that encouraged him to speak his mind. "God, I really do love you, you know that?"
He told her when they were side by side on the last step and his tattooed fingers were entwined with her porcelain ones. For a single second, it appeared as though she was only going to tilt her head towards him as she looked at him from the side and nod her head bashfully.
It appeared as though she really was going to do this. And Sammy would be okay with that. In truth, he would be wholeheartedly okay with that!
But as they made it onto the sidewalk and prepared to venture home together, whether that journey took them to a night of innocence like the lace of Lucy's dress or mischief like the midnight hues of everything that Sammy was wearing, the yellow haired woman was united with her man within her heart.
They felt the same things. She felt like a bride when she walked down the steps with him. So it was because of this that after he spoke these words to her with a grin on his face, though she hadn't immediately reciprocated them – and she had reciprocated them way back more than a year ago – she did there and then and in that moment.
Lucy did not show him with words. She showed him with actions instead.
Sammy was somehow none the wiser when Lucy had a turn to grab his own face yet again and he was about to look at her accusatorily.
Before his eyebrows could shoot up on his face and his nose rings could waver with suspicion, his lips felt the kiss of the woman he loved and his body felt the embrace of the woman he adored.
And then the two of them were kissing under a starless sky but that was okay because they had shimmering lights of their own behind their eyelids as they held one and other. Maybe she hadn't uttered with words how much she loved him – how much she adored him, in fact. But in that moment she kissed him with her whole heart and she meant it. And Sammy could sleep well that night because he knew that she meant it.
He didn't know that not hearing the words "I love you too" could mean so much, but there they were. There he was. They she was. There they both were. And there we are.
This is a story that I was not expecting. And yet I adore that about my own life. The sheer surprise of it all, no matter how old I become. I rest easy in the knowing that pages can be ripped from my eyes at any minute. But knowing I have these stories to lie back on. And remember. And cherish as much as all of the couples in their own happily ever-afters as they do each other.
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) Aaah, so yes, yet another pairing forms! Me and Shannon have said to each other so many times after creating this dynamic between each other at the beginning of the year, that we were so surprised that we have never done a scenario where couples straight up swap significant others. Well it finally happened! It's not like any of Justin, Eli, Sammy or Lucy planned this. But I think it's easy to see how Lucy and Sammy fall for each other when they both can relate to imagining and planning a whole life with someone and then realising they must let them go to be where they need to be. This dynamic of Sammy and Lucy is a close one to our hearts and I really can't wait to go back and tell more of their stories, to being just friends who enjoy the benefits as it were - to deciding to make it official after Justin and Eli become husbands :P Thanks again and I will be back on the 28th with the last chapter of The Diary of Baby Rey for the timing being! See you then :)
Amy signing out!